With the departure of Glenn Beck from Fox News, Eric Bolling has been auditioning to be Beck's heir by coming up with wild conspiracy theories and making comments with racial overtones. Now Bolling is expanding his repertoire to another area. Commenting on the American hikers who were recently released from an Iranian prison, Bolling said they were spies and: “I think [Iran] should have kept them.” He also criticized the United States for possibly spending money to set them free. From Fox New's The Five:

These remarks recall the widely-condemned comments of retired Col. Ralph Peters, who suggested a U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban should be left to die in order to “save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.” (Peters subsequently walked those comments back.)

Combine these comments with Bolling's long history of racist, false, and inflammatory rhetoric, along with his radical conspiracy theories, and you create a toxic television host who Fox graciously gives a platform to twice a night (once on Fox News' The Five, and once on Fox Business' Follow The Money) so he can push his fringe views.