‘The View’ Hosts Defend Jeffrey Toobin’s CNN Reinstatement: ‘I’m Not Judging’

The Wrap

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The hosts of “The View” aren’t all that bothered by Jeffrey Toobin’s reinstatement on CNN after an incident in which he unknowingly exposed himself to colleagues while on a Zoom call. In fact, they think the consequences he faced were plenty.

Discussing the incident during their Hot Topics segment on Monday, Whoopi Goldberg turned first to Ana Navarro — who used to work at CNN — asking if she was surprised that Toobin was allowed back on the air.

“You know, actually, I’m not surprised he’s back on the air,” Navarro admitted. “But I will tell you, when I saw that interview — oh God, how embarrassing, how humiliating. I kept thinking to myself, ‘If I have 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.'”

Navarro went on to add that this particular incident was, in her opinion, a little more nuanced than others have been in the past.

“In this case, he was not sexually harassing anybody, he didn’t have the intent to sexually harass somebody. He was sexually harassing himself! Uh, maybe” Navarro said. “He was on a Zoom call. It was an accidental exposure. It was not a CNN Zoom call, it was with The New Yorker — from where he has been terminated and faced consequences — he was off CNN for many months, during the elections, during some of the hottest political and legal times.”

Navarro finished her thoughts by adding that CNN is a for-profit business, and that “if viewers don’t like it, then they should make their views known.” She noted that the incident wasn’t something she felt Toobin had specifically done to target CNN employees.

Co-host Joy Behar lamented that Alisyn Camerota was the host chosen to interview Toobin on his return, when the network had plenty of male options to give it to.

“She didn’t deserve that,” Behar said. “It was embarrassing and uncomfortable, and manipulative, I thought.”

Behar then took issue with Toobin’s choice of words in saying that he’s trying to become a better person by working at a food bank.

“I don’t see the correlation between needing to engage Mr. Happy and being a bad person,” Behar said. “I mean, maybe it causes blindness, but I don’t see how it causes you to be a bad person. Because that would be everybody in the world, practically.”

She added that the difference here is that most people do engage in that behavior at home, in private, but like Navarro said that Toobin’s exposure was accidental.

“He didn’t know the thing was running, of course, so we forgive him that,” Behar said. “I’m not judging the guy. I mean, it just shows you how boring these Zoom meetings are, that he couldn’t even wait between meetings to get himself involved with himself.”

Behar noted that she was being facetious to an extent, and went on to opine that the consequences in situations like this are ill-defined.

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