He threaded that line carefully

Adam Klasfeld, a journalist for Courthouse News, was on the MSNBC podcast The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, talking about the upcoming Trump criminal trial and rulings that Judge Merchan made. Klasfeld said that Merchan was narrowing his rulings to focus on the election obstruction effort by Trump and the hush money. The malaphor is at 18:08:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-last-word-with-lawrence-odonnell/id1316084734?i=1000652570575

This is a mashup of “walk a thin line” (navigate or strike a balance between two sides) and “thread the needle” (to pass something through a narrow space between two things). Both expressions describe an activity that must be done very carefully. A big thank you to Frank King for hearing this one and sending it in!