Jeffrey Toobin returns to CNN eight months after his "deeply moronic and indefensible" New Yorker Zoom masturbation incident

CNN Newsroom anchor Alisyn Camerota discussed with Toobin his Zoom incident during his return to the cable network. “In October, you were on a Zoom call with your colleagues from the New Yorker magazine,” Camerota said to Toobin. “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?" “You got it all right,” Toobin replied. “Sad to say.” Camerota then quoted Jay Leno's famous Tonight Show line to Hugh Grant -- “What the hell were you thinking?” “Well, obviously, I wasn’t thinking very well or very much,” Toobin said. “And it was something that was inexplicable to me. I think one point — I wouldn’t exactly say in my defense, because nothing is really in my defense — I didn’t think I was on the call. I didn’t think other people could see me.” Toobin said he thought he had turned off the Zoom call. "This was deeply moronic and indefensible," he said. "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.” Asked about The New Yorker's decision to fire him, Toobin termed his punishment "excessive," before adding, "But look, that's why they don't ask the criminal to be the judge in his own case."