Carl Bernstein blames GOP enablers for making 'unhinged' Trump Russia scandal worse than Watergate

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein blasted President Donald Trump in a Thursday discussion with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. The former Washington Post reporter, who broke the Watergate scandal said that the Republicans enablers in Congress have made the scandal far worse than what Nixon did.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump asked his lawyers to make a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller so that he could answer questions. The demand went against his lawyers' advice. Thursday's Times report detailed that sources believe Mueller is also looking into ties between Trump associates and Russians.

"That would include members of Trump's family," Bernstein noted. "I think we need to look at that aspect of it perhaps as being as dangerous for President Trump and those around him as these questions of obstruction. This whole investigation is going increasingly, from what we can see, to the question of collusion, a conspiracy perhaps to engage with Russians, to impede and interfere in the elections. But we'll have to see. Certainly, Mueller wants to go in that direction, and that's what The Times story indicates."

Bernstein also explained that the president wants to energize his base by claiming that a Democratic Congress will impeach him. He went on to say that throughout the Trump presidency, the base has been critical to him. "Not to be president of all the people of this country, and to increasingly appeal and incite that base as a means of holding on to his office, should it be threatened."

Blitzer questioned the levels of paranoia between both Trump and Nixon and asked which one Bernstein believed was more anxious publicly.

"First, I think what we're seeing is more than anxiety on the part of Donald Trump," Bernstein said. "We are seeing a president who is behaving and acting unhinged. Nixon did not really publicly act unhinged, but I think we need to look at something larger. That is that in Watergate, the system worked. The president of the United States did not publicly declare the press an enemy of the people and seek to undermine the First Amendment and the very legitimacy of what the press did, though he did try to make our conduct an issue, or the issue in Watergate, rather than his own conduct."

He went on to say that Trump has taken the exercise of the First Amendment and turned it into a kind of "hysteria unlike any other president in our history."

"More than that, I think it's time to recognize that what we are watching in the Trump presidency is worse than Watergate," he continued. "It's worse than Watergate, as I say because the system worked in Watergate. The heroes of Watergate were Republicans who demanded that the president be held accountable, who demanded he be transparent, who demanded to know what the president knew and when did he know it, and who conducted a bipartisan investigation that led, in fact, to understanding and finding out what Nixon had done."

Today, Republicans on Capitol Hill have done almost everything to impede and undermine a legitimate investigation, Bernstein said. He went on to call it a more dangerous situation.

"Also, Donald Trump is a demonstrable authoritarian in terms of his rhetoric, in terms of whipping up his base, Nixon did not do anything similar to that," he said. "You did not see rallies such as we saw the other night intended to send an authoritarian message as we saw."

Watch the full commentary below: