I think it’s a case of them thinking what the title says, but knowing it makes them look shitty, so trying to couch it in a way that makes it open to interpretation, or at the very least gives them plausible deniability.

Like a lot of right wing commentators/popular people. Talk bullshit around the point everyone knows you’re making, so when people call you out on it you can go “I specifically say that, so that’s not true, and you’re actually the ass hole for acusing me of it”