Calmed a lot of feathers

Ali Velshi on the MSNBC show Alex Wagner Tonight said this one. He was saying that when President Biden spoke after the Hamas massacre and pledged unconditional support for Israel “it calmed a lot of feathers”. It is a congruent conflation of “smoothed (one’s) ruffled feathers” and “calmed the waters”, both meaning to attempt to calm or placate someone or something. A big thanks to Mike Kovacs for hearing this one and passing it on!