Gee, whatever can you mean? Never mind, we know exactly what Stephanie Ruhle means. Does NBC?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLTuT_lz6iE

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle implied without evidence Tuesday that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) has something to hide and the president is blackmailing him over it.

Graham has become one of the President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in the Senate, although he has criticized him for some key decisions, such as the military pullout from Syria. Ruhle seemed to imply there’s more to their relationship than politics, however, during a discussion about Graham with former Rep. David Jolly and professor Eddie Glaude.

“Before Don got elected, Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a racist, xenophobic bigot. Those are Lindsey Graham’s words,” Jolly said. “I doubt Lindsey Graham could tell you Donald Trump has had a change of heart in the last 24 months, I bet the change of heart has been with Lindsey Graham, not the president.”

“Or it could be that Donald Trump or somebody knows something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham,” Ruhle replied. “We’re gonna have to leave it there.”

Nothing like a little homophobia from the voice of the progressives, eh? The entire clip reeks of McCarthyite speculation and gossiping, but at least the run-up was coming from guest contributors. The sloppy turd at the end got dropped by an NBC News division television anchor. None of this, by the way, was informed by evidence or testimony of any kind — just the kind of spitballing that dents the credibility of Twitter trolls, let alone major news media outlets. “We’re gonna have to leave it there,” indeed.

MSNBC isn’t the origin of this speculation, although NBC News seems happy (so far) to amplify smears that would make Harry Reid blush. (OK, maybe not.) Free Beacon’s Paul Crookston notes that the chair of a leading Democratic super-PAC is passing along similar gossip on Twitter, supposedly having a Republican source who “thinks” Graham is involved in “serious kink.” This comes on top of years of speculation about Graham’s sexuality that has almost zip to do with anything, including the price of rice in China. However, as Crookston notes, Jon Cooper argues that Graham has “a strong likelihood” of being blackmailed by Russians due to his position as chair of, um … the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If so, that needs to be revealed,” Cooper insists, apparently not realizing he’s just endorsed the old policies that kept LGBTQ people from holding security clearances for decades.

And all of this is because no one can figure out why Lindsey Graham went from attacking Trump in the primaries to supporting him as the party’s president. Which is likelier: that Trump has something on Graham that his many political opponents couldn’t dig up before, or that Trump carried Graham’s state by 14 points in the 2016 general election? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

We’re gonna have to leave it there. However, let’s give Stephen Miller the last question, via Twitchy, and see how long it takes to get the answer:

And being pushed on a major news network while media hall monitors are silent. https://t.co/jK3SUb1ccg

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 15, 2019