Bob Beckel dies at 73

Longtime cable news pundit and political analyst Bob Beckel died on Monday. 

He was 73. 

New of Beckel’s passing was first shared by longtime friend and columnist Cal Thomas, and Fox News host Sean Hannity memorialized Beckel on his show Monday evening.

“He was always full of joy, happiness, light, sunshine. He loved God and Jesus and we miss him already. God bless you, God speed, Bob Beckel,” Hannity said. 

Beckel, a Democrat, worked in President Carter’s administration before beginning a career in cable news in the late 1990s as a co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire Sunday” program. 

He joined Fox News as a contributor in 2000 and was a founding panelist on its early-evening talk program “The Five” when it was created in 2011. 

Beckel was fired from Fox in 2017 for allegedly making an inappropriate remark to an African American employee. He had previously been fired from the network in 2015 due to “personal issues” after being in rehab for months because of an addiction to painkillers.

Beckel wrote openly about his struggles with addiction in his 2015 memoir “I Should Be Dead: My Life Surviving Politics, TV, and Addiction.”