Fox Fires Host Bob Beckel for Racist Remark

Another host is out the door at Fox News: The network confirmed Friday that The Five co-host Bob Beckel was fired for making a racist remark. Beckel "was terminated today for making an insensitive remark to an African-American employee," the network said in a brief statement. A lawyer handling a racial discrimination lawsuit against Fox says Beckel became angry when a black IT worker turned up to service his computer, and told the man "he was leaving his office because he is black," NBC reports. To make matters worse, after the worker lodged a complaint, Beckel "attempted to intimidate our client and persuade him to withdraw his complaint," attorney Douglas Wigdor says.

Wigdor says the discrimination case against Fox now involves 23 clients, and lawyers "will be filing multiple other complaints in other matters next week," CNN reports. Fox denied that anybody tried to persuade the employee to withdraw the complaint, saying the investigation of the complaint was "prompt and thorough." Beckel, 68, was one of the only left-leaning Fox hosts, the New York Times reports. He served in the Carter administration and was Walter Mondale's campaign manager in 1984. He was previously fired by Fox in 2015 after having back surgery but was welcomed back in January this year. (Fox founder Roger Ailes died Thursday, eight days after a serious accident at home.)