Joy Behar tells The View disgraced journalist Jeffrey Toobin ‘isn’t a bad person’ for being caught masturbating on work Zoom call and claims he was just bored – then condemns CNN for making female anchor do first post-scandal interview
- The View co-host Joy Behar came to the defense of disgraced CNN legal analyst and former New Yorker columnist Jeffrey Toobin on Monday
- Behar instead reserved her condemnation for the network itself over its decision to have a female anchor be the one to welcome Toobin back on-air
- ‘I don’t see the correlation between needing to engage Mr. Happy and being a bad person,’ Behar said on Monday’s episode of The View
- She also claimed Toobin was likely just bored – then segued to claim it was inappropriate for CNN to make a female anchor do Toobin’s comeback chat
- Behar did however discuss the hypocrisy of allowing Toobin back on air, while other public figures like Louis CK and Al Franken were canceled for good
Joy Behar told The View that disgraced journalist Jeffrey Toobin ‘isn’t a bad person’ for being caught masturbating on a work Zoom call – but then lashed CNN for making a female host do his comeback interview.
Behar said Monday: ‘(Toobin) said that he wants to be a better person. He’s working at a food bank. I don’t see the correlation between needing to engage Mr. Happy and being a bad person,’ in an apparent reference to the writer’s penis.
‘I mean, maybe it causes blindness, but I don’t see how it causes you to be a bad person,’ she continued, saying that had it not been for the webcam, Toobin would have been perfectly entitled to ‘do what he was doing at home alone in their house.’
Behar was among those who bought Toobin’s claim that he did not realize his webcam was still running when he started pleasuring himself in front of his horrified former colleagues at The New Yorker magazine in October 2020.
The married writer was seen blowing kisses to an unseen figure while lowering and raising his camera, and later apologized to his family for making ‘an embarrassingly stupid mistake.’
The View co-host Joy Behar (pictured) came to the defense of disgraced CNN legal analyst and former New Yorker columnist Jeffrey Toobin on Monday
‘I don’t see the correlation between needing to engage Mr. Happy and being a bad person,’ Behar told co-host Whoopi Goldberg on Monday’s episode of The View
She said Monday: ‘He didn’t know the thing was running, of course, so we forgive him that.’
The longtime View co-host even wisecracked about Toobin being caught with his pants down, claiming his behavior was an indictment of just how boring work video conferencing could be.
Behar said: ‘I’m not judging the guy, I mean it shows how boring these Zoom meetings are, that he couldn’t even wait between meetings to get himself involved with himself.’
And she then turned on CNN – which has welcomed Toobin back as a legal analyst after an eight month suspension, saying it was inappropriate to have a female correspondent conduct his comeback interview.
‘With all the men on CNN’s payroll, they had to give it to poor Alisyn Camerota,’ Behar said of the interview on Monday’s The View.
‘She didn’t deserve that. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable, and manipulative, I thought.’
Pictured: Jeffrey Toobin’s on-air return to CNN has proved to be controversial, however Behar believes the network is more to blame for having a female anchor interview him
The CNN legal analyst was fired from his New Yorker position, which he had served for 27-years, but only served an eight month suspension at the television news network
Behar did note the hypocrisy that Toobin is back on-air, while other offenders such as comedians Louis CK and Al Franken got the proverbial boot and have remained ‘canceled’ for good.
‘Does this mean that Al Franken — get him back into the Senate — let’s get him back because I don’t know what he did that is worse than any of this,’ Behar added. ‘I really don’t understand the rules and regulations of this — What is accountable and what’s not accountable, frankly.
Louis CK infamously confirmed reports that he had purposefully masturbated in front of women without their consent, and has remained a pariah despite an attempt at a comeback tour, according to the LA Times.
Franken, a longtime SNL figure-turned-politician, was forced to resign from his position as US Senator of Minnesota in 2018 after allegations that he inappropriately kissed and harassed Leeann Tweeden while the two were on a USO tour together back in 2006, the New Yorker reported in 2019.