CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin returned to the cable news network Thursday, several months after being caught masturbating during a Zoom call with his former New Yorker staff members.
A transcript is as follows:
ALISYN CAMEROTA: In October, you were on a Zoom call with your colleagues from the New Yorker magazine. Everyone took a break for several minutes, during which time you were caught masturbating on camera. You were subsequently fired from that job, after 27 years of working there. And you, since then, have been on leave from CNN. Do I have all that right?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: You got it all right, sad to say.
CAMEROTA: Let’s start there. To quote Jay Leno, “What the hell were you thinking?”
TOOBIN: Well, obviously, I wasn’t thinking very well or very much. And it was something that was inexplicable to me. I think one point and I wouldn’t exactly say in my defense, because nothing is really in my defense and I didn’t think I was on the call. I didn’t think other people could see me.
CAMEROTA: You thought that you had turned off your camera?
TOOBIN: Correct. I thought that I had turned off the zoom call. Now, that’s not a defense. This was deeply moronic and indefensible. But that is part of the story. I have spent the seven subsequent months, miserable months in my life, I can certainly confess, trying to be a better person. I’m in therapy, trying to do some public service, working in a food bank, which I’m certainly going to continue to do, working on a new book about the Oklahoma City bombing. I am trying to become the kind of person that people can trust again.