“’Trial by combat???’
Why would he say such a stupid thing?”
Emotion of the moment—It must have been the sea of brand-new US flags and brand-new MAGA hats—carried by black-clothed chanters of foul-languaged rhetoric. :-/
‘Course, “trial by combat” can be a euphemism.
I looked into this.
I believe it was a senior moment.
The mode of action he was trying to advocate for was “combat by trial”. In the excitement of the monent, his brain locked up and he switched the order of the words.
Reverse the order and his remarks make perfect sense.