'The View' Host Whoopi Goldberg Disgusted With Jeffrey Toobin For Returning To CNN After His Zoom Masturbation Incident
June 14 2021, Published 5:08 p.m. ET
The women of The View discussed Jeffrey Toobin's controversial return to CNN following last year's Zoom [expletive] incident, and it seems like no one was as disgusted as moderator Whoopi Goldberg.
Interviewed by CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota, Toobin made his televised homecoming as the network's chief legal analyst this past Thursday, seven months after being fired from The New Yorker and placed on leave by CNN for being caught masturbating during a Zoom meeting with colleagues.
"I don't wanna be on a call where someone forgets that they're on the call and doesn't turn their camera off. I don't wanna see it. I don't know what you're doing. You wanna [censored]? Go someplace else, you know?" Goldberg told her co-hosts.
"Think of the people who have to see it, you know?" she added with an uncomfortable chuckle. "Think about that. All of us should be very aware now [that] if our hands are wandering in a direction they shouldn't be, we should always check the camera, especially if we're on a Zoom call."
During last week's cringe-worthy sit-down, Camerota very matter-of-factly recapped the incident and what transpired after. Toobin appeared unbothered by his female colleague's mortifying presentation of facts, describing himself as a "flawed human being who makes mistakes" whose conduct was "deeply moronic and indefensible."
His explanation – though admittedly not an excuse – was that he "didn't think other people could see me."
Toobin apologized to his wife and family, to the people who were on the call that day, to his colleagues, and "to the people who read my work and who watched me on CNN who thought I was a better person than this."
He told Camerota he had spent his "miserable months" off the air "trying to be a better person;" he mentioned attending "therapy," doing public service like working at a food bank, and writing a book about the Oklahoma City bombing.
The View's Ana Navarro – a frequent CNN contributor – told Goldberg the ordeal would've prevented her from ever showing her face on TV again, then put the responsibility on the viewers to speak up if they were outraged.
"I'm not surprised he's back on the air, but I will tell you, when I saw that interview, [I thought], 'Oh god, how embarrassing, how humiliating,'" she explained. "I kept thinking to myself, 'If I had to go on live TV and explain to the nation why I masturbated on a Zoom call, I think I'd rather go sell avocados under I-95 than get my job back on TV.'"