On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” journalist, author, and CNN Commentator Carl Bernstein stated that the 2016 presidential election “election is really the Gettysburg of the culture wars of the last 30 years, and “presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email conduct “is indefensible. It was reckless. She has lied about it.”

Bernstein said, “[T]his election is really the Gettysburg of the culture wars of the last 30 years, and whoever wins this election, the culture wars are going to move, or be decided in a definitive way.”

He further stated, that while Trump’s lying is “pathological, in many regards,” “this convention has been surprisingly effective in terms of fighting that war, including the kids, the way that the Trump people want it fought.” Bernstein also criticized Dr. Ben Carson’s statement regarding Hillary Clinton’s admiration of Saul Alinsky and his book’s dedication to Lucifer as ridiculous, and could ruin the party’s message.

After the discussion turned to Clinton’s email conduct, Bernstein said, “What she did is indefensible. It was reckless. She has lied about it. And that is why, especially after Comey, she is now baked in this perception among too many people in this country for her comfort, as a liar, as distrusted, and so we now have…an election between these two people who are disdained by most Americans. We’ve never had a situation like this before. And that’s why we’re in this scorched earth civil war, Gettysburg, whatever the analogy is. We’re in a place we’ve never been before, but what happens at the end of it is going to change our country irrevocably.”

Bernstein added that Trump “has a record of fraudulent dealings. He won’t release his taxes, unheard of for a presidential candidate, and the terrible thing is, Hillary Clinton can’t effectively go after him on his taxes, because she won’t release her damn speeches that she was paid for in the Goldman Sachs instances. It is a terrible bind she is. Her people know this election is up for grabs. some of them are horrified. And what they’re horrified at, particularly old friends and supporters of Hillary Clinton who believe in her, is that she has made it possible, perhaps, for Donald Trump to become the president of the United States.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett