(Trump) shoots from the cuff

Megyn Kelly was talking about Trump’s encounter with Jorge Ramos:

KELLY: When he got up there, you know, in his speech, he was talking about how he thinks they should ban Teleprompters for these politicians.  These presidential candidates which I think, you know, the President actually uses a teleprompter pretty much in most places he goes. But I don’t know that the candidates have been. But the point is, there is a realness to Donald Trump that is missing from so many of these other candidates. They do tend to sound rehearsed and stilted. He is never rehearsed. Obviously he shoots from the cuff and he says everything that comes to his mind which has gotten him in some trouble but I think helps him more than it hurts him. And people are very much connecting to that.

I have posted this malaphor earlier (see March 2014 entry) but it bears repeating, considering the timeliness of this excellent mixed idiom.  Shoot from the cuff is a mash up of “shoot from the hip” and speaking “off the cuff”, both meaning to speak spontaneously and frankly.  (Also see “shoot from the lip” in my Politics section).  Thanks to Sandor Kovacs and Vicki Kovacs for both spotting this one!