It took less than 48 hours for the US mainstream media to go from blaming President Donald Trump for a series of suspicious packages sent to leading Democrats and CNN to blaming - who else? - Russia.

US authorities are still hunting for the person or persons responsible for ten or so packages containing what appeared to be pipe bombs - none of which have actually exploded - that were sent to CNN and prominent Democrats over the past two days.

For much of Thursday night's Meet the Press Daily show on MSNBC, host Chuck Todd and his guests followed the narrative adopted by most media outlets, blaming what they described as Trump's incendiary rhetoric against the press. Then Todd went there.

"I have this fear that it could be some Russian operation," Todd told his guests, explaining his reasoning as, "It is dividing us."