Story highlights Donald Trump says the controversy over Hillary Clinton's emails "is bigger than Watergate"

Journalist Carl Bernstein -- one-half of the reporting team that broke the Watergate story -- disagrees

(CNN) Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein Friday night seemingly contradicted a talking point repeated by Republican nominee Donald Trump, saying that newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton's private server did not rise to the occasion of Watergate, the scandal that brought down President Nixon in 1974.

"Its not Watergate," Bernstein told Anderson Cooper on CNN's "AC360."

"Watergate was about a criminal President of the United States who presided over a criminal administration from the day he took office to the day he left," Bernstein said, referring to then-President Richard Nixon.

Bernstein, however, did not dismiss the latest controversy as insignificant.

"This is nonetheless about a hugely serious event in which a secretary of state was clearly reckless, endangered national security by her handling of emails," he said.

Read More