ALLISYN CAMEROTA, CNN: Well, at times, it sounded like a debate, even though the candidates did not appear on stage together. Last night, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump talked national security and foreign policy and they also slammed each other, as you heard.



So let's get some more perspective on this, as well as the e-mail situation, from CNN political commentator Carl Bernstein. He is the author of A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.



Carl, great to see you this morning. Let's quickly start with the forum.



CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be with you.



CAMEROTA: What - what jumped out at you from this candidates' forum last night?



BERNSTEIN: That Donald Trump lies pathologically, that he's not a serious thinker, and that the big question for the press now is, how do we stop projecting some kind of parity between these two candidates, because the great story here is disparity between the two in terms of seriousness, experience, and even truth telling. Trump lies pathologically. No question Hillary Clinton, as I say in my book, has had a difficult relationship to the truth. But it's much more situational lying. It's nothing admirable, but it's quite different than Trump's record lying about how he felt about the war and going

to war. This goes on and on. He needs to be called on it.



CUOMO: There was a development that did not come up last night, but there was a lot of scrutiny last night about Clinton's e-mail situation. The Colin Powell e-mail is now released. We'll put it up on the screen. As you know, Carl, and as you'e written about, this was something that was colored as untrue, as a Clinton lie, this never happened, Powell didn;t advise her. Powell gave a mixed review of what he did with Clinton. And now we see this. And people read it for themselves. And it does seem that he's suggesting, hey, be careful, they're going to be these rules, you have to be careful about them, and I got around them by not saying much and not using - and using - not using systems that captured the data.



Does this change people's reckoning of the e-mail controversy in your mind?



BERNSTEIN: No, but I think it helps her because she indeed has said I consulted with Powell. He gave me this advice. It doesn't make the use of a private server in her basement defensible. It's indefensible. It endangered national security. They're apples and oranges to some extent. And at the same time it shows that Powell looked for a run around the bureaucracy, but that's different than Hillary Clinton trying to avoid accountability under the Freedom of Information Act, to Congress, et cetera, by setting up an inaccessible server in her basement.



That said, she has to break this cycle about the server, about her truthfulness, and I would suggest that she open up, that she starts holding press conferences, release her medical records and spend an hour with the press talking about her health. That she also release those texts of the speeches before Goldman Sachs. Say, as she did about foreign policy in her vote on the war, I've learned from my mistakes. The American people want me to be more open. Here it is. And I'm starting right now in this campaign. I think there would be a tremendous turn around in terms of how she is perceived, particularly she wants to make an issue of the taxes of Donald Trump.



CAMEROTA: Yes.



BERNSTEIN: Let her release her speeches.



CAMEROTA: Hey, Carl, this just in.



BERNSTEIN: Yes.



CAMEROTA: We've just gotten some breaking political news that Hillary Clinton is holding a press conference at 9:15 this morning. She's been listening to you just now and -



BERNSTEIN: That's it. I'm in here ear. I'm in her ear. See, she reads the book, now she's -



CAMEROTA: You're in her head, obviously. So she will be talking to reporters at 9:15 this morning. But in fairness, it is the third time this week that she has spoken to reporters. You know that they were on her plane, the press plane, for the first time, and she did field about a dozen questions there. So it sounds like she is opening up now.



BERNSTEIN: Well, let her do it constantly. Look, the best part of Hillary Clinton is when she shows her human side and when she is spontaneous. Let her try something new. Let her get past this guarded, private, secretive, sometimes disingenuous person and let's go and open up because there is no parity.



CUOMO: Carl -



BERNSTEIN: And the job of the press here is to end this disparity, the idea that they're the same.



CUOMO: All right, let's talk about that for a second. I think that's a very important concept and I do think that it was put on display in a unique way last night.



BERNSTEIN: Absolutely, last night.



CUOMO: No matter what Hillary Clinton says about the e-mails, there are people who will not move off this reckoning of her as untrustworthy. And it does seem, that as you know, you know, you're a mentor to the show, no matter how much you go at Trump for things that are patently false, it does not change his basis of support. So when you talk about disparity, what do you mean?



BERNSTEIN: I mean that the job of the press is to show the records and lives of these two people. And that there is nothing comparable about, for instance, the disingenuousness and constant lying of Trump and Hillary's lack of transparency on things. They're apples and oranges.



But there is a life of both of these people that needs to be examined constantly in terms of their service to other people, service to the country, service to children. Let's look at the records. You cannot pretend. The job of reporters and anchors is to go for the best obtainable version of the truth. And that's about context. We need context about these two peoples' lives, what they're saying, their campaigns.



And when you do that, you see, actually as Obama said today, this is not a serious man. This is not a thoughtful person. This is more of the vein of Sarah Palin versus Joe Biden, that we are in unchartered presidential territory here with a nominee of a major party who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about a good bit of the time. This is unprecedented. That's the story.



CAMEROTA: Carl Bernstein, thanks so much. We'll have you back again soon. Thanks for being here.



BERNSTEIN: Good to be with you.



(via Breitbart Video)