Trying to put up smoke flares

Erin Burnett said, in reference to Trump’s defenders, that they were “trying to put up smoke flares to confuse the truth.” She says this at 4 minutes into a clip entitled, ‘Photographer Snaps Notes of MyPillow CEO After Visiting Trump.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B6tawcCwo0

This is a mash-up of “‘putting up a smoke screen” (an action that functions to conceal or divert attention away from one’s true plans) and “sending up (or firing off) a flare” (to send a signal). A big thanks to Torre Thomspson for sending this one in, and remarking that “where there’s smoke, there’s flare.”