The longtime Democratic political operative ran Walter Mondale’s 1984 campaign and was twice fired by Fox News during a lengthy career as a talking head.
Democratic political operative and former Fox News host Bob Beckel has died at age 73, his longtime friend and fellow columnist Cal Thomas confirmed Monday evening. His cause of death was not specified. “We miss him already,” former colleague Sean Hannity said Monday evening on his Fox News show. Beckel worked in the Carter administration, ran Walter Mondale’s failed 1984 presidential campaign, and later became a Fox News political analyst, often serving as a token Democratic voice on the network’s panels. In 2011, he became the curmudgeonly co-host of the network’s midday talk show, The Five, until he was unceremoniously kicked to the curb, with Fox declaring in a statement that the show would not be held “hostage to one man’s personal issues.” He briefly served as a political analyst for CNN before returning to Fox News in January 2017, only to be fired once again a few months later after allegedly making racist remarks to a Black colleague. Beckel struggled with addiction for much of his life, as detailed in a 2015 memoir, I Should Be Dead: My Life Surviving Politics, TV, and Addiction.
