Megyn Kelly and Malcolm Gladwell Spar Over Toobin’s Zoom Dick Incident: ‘Don’t Jerk Off in the Middle of a Work Call!’

Author Malcolm Gladwell and Megyn Kelly sparred over Jeffrey Toobin’s “zoom dick” scandal on Kelly’s eponymous podcast, with Kelly succinctly summarizing her views on the topic as “don’t jerk off in the middle of a work call!”

Toobin was fired from the New Yorker magazine after an incident during a Zoom conference call with his colleagues in which he was caught engaging in some, well, personal time during a break. Toobin said that he thought the camera was off and muted and apologized, but lost his job at the magazine and was placed on leave as a CNN legal analyst. CNN brought him back on the air in June with an awkward and cringetastic interview segment with Alisyn Camerota.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Camerota asked him, a sentiment clearly shared by Kelly, who opened the segment by noting that Gladwell had joked that Toobin had been cancelled for “failing to follow Catholic doctrine.”

“I’ve definitely got strong thoughts on this one,” said Kelly, asking Gladwell to explain why he disagreed with Toobin’s firing.

“I’m an explanations junkie,” said Gladwell, the author of several bestselling books that have drawn heavily from research into social sciences to explain trends in human behavior, personality traits, and why certain ideas and products become popular.

He continued, saying that he would be willing to entertain doing something he might not agree with, or to condone someone else doing something he disagreed with, as long as he was given a decent explanation regarding why. Therefore, Condé Nast (the parent company for the New Yorker) was certainly within their rights to fire Toobin, “but you’ve gotta give a reason.”

Toobin, in Gladwell’s view, had done “high level, quality work” for years before he was fired, but “they did not say why, and that really, really bothered me.”

“I think it’s as plain as the nose on your face,” laughed Kelly, “or you could go further south, if you really want to take it into Toobin land.”

“I am one of those people who believes there is a clear ethical difference between an intentional and an unintentional act,” said Gladwell, “and I am inclined to be far more forgiving” when the harmful act was “completely unintentional.”

“Maybe,” interjected Kelly. “I’ve heard it posited that it may have been intentional because it was so reckless to the point where it’s possible that he enjoyed that — I realize he protests otherwise — but that he was actually looking to be an exhibitionist.”

That would have been a good thing for Condé Nast to investigate, commented Gladwell.

Kelly reiterated her point about how “reckless” Toobin’s actions were. The “respect and dignity” that should be present in the newsroom was “lost in that moment,” she said. “You don’t need an internal investigation to see the obvious revulsion” and “trauma” that his colleagues undoubtedly experienced.

“Some things are just obvious,” said Kelly. “That, plus his history, because he has a history with women that was problematic.”

Gladwell went back to insisting that explanations were still important, and that the workplace was in a “gray area” right now, in “a situation that didn’t exist before” with people working from home, stressed out during the pandemic, and using this unfamiliar technology.

The world going forward would be different than it was pre-pandemic, he continued, and “it would be useful for us to figure out a set of ground rules for this new working environment.”

“I’ve got one,” Kelly declared. “Don’t jerk off in the middle of a work call! Muting the camera is not an excuse. There is not an exception to this rule!”

Watch above, via YouTube.