Former Fox News contributor Bob Beckel broke a confidentiality agreement over the weekend and claimed that his ouster was the result of “set-up.”
One of the original hosts of “The Five” told a St. Louis-based radio station that President Trump is linked to his May 2017 departure from the network.
A statement released by Fox at the time noted “an insensitive remark to an African-American employee” who dealt with information-technology issues.
“I’ve decided to use your radio show to be the first time I will say this to anybody, and that is in my view that I was completely set up by someone, and my guess is they may be outside the White House, and I was set up on an absurd, racist comment,” Mr. Beckel said Sunday, the Washington Examiner reported. “People who know me were shocked that that would happen. Well, they were shocked because it didn’t happen.”
The former campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale then discussed bad blood between himself and Mr. Trump.
“Trump and I had known each other for a long time. I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, that’s fine. But the fact that I was set up like that, no appeal, no chance to make my case. … This was not about a racist comment,” Mr. Beckel said. “This was because I was the loudest voice on that network against Donald Trump. I have broken that agreement, and that’s too bad.”
Mr. Beckel’s exit from Fox wasn’t his first run-in with racial controversies involving information technology specialists; he was criticized in 2014 for referring to “Chinamen” on air.
“As usual, we bring them over here and we teach a bunch of Chinamen — er, Chinese people — how to do computers and then they go back to China and hack into us,” Mr. Beckel said in July 2014.
“I made some comments last week about the Chinese people which apparently upset some people, for which I apologize,” he said afterward. “However … I do not apologize for the things I’ve said about China and I won’t go into the litany of it now because there are too many China apologists in this country. … But to those who were offended, I apologize.”
Mr. Beckel added during his KFTK 97.1 FM interview on “The Weekend Report” that legal action may follow within “the next six months.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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