[See NewsBusters for more.] It was only a matter of time before someone in the media claimed that the coronavirus pandemic is proof that President Trump and Vladimir Putin are best friends, but it took deceptively editing some of Trump's press conferences for CNN Newsroom co-host Jim Sciutto to do just that on Monday.
Leading into a video report of himself, Sciutto declared, "President Trump, you may have missed this, has been warming up of late to his old friend Russia's President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders have made a record number of phone calls to each other recently and some of the president's own former advisers say Putin may be using the coronavirus pandemic to realize his long-held goal of edging closer to Trump."