What is it called when someone implies something without directly saying it, so they can deny they said what they were implying.
Example:
"Only a certain type of people put raisins in potato salad and you know who they are".
"You mean white people?"
"That’s not what I said!"
Insinuate is the word for this.
If you say that someone insinuates that something bad is the case, you mean that they say it in an indirect way.
The libel claim followed an article which insinuated that the President was lying.
[Collins]
Plausible deniability is an expression - usually used in a legal or political sense - used with reference to speech which implies something (generally negative) but doesn't state it openly and directly, such that the implication can later be denied, having not been stated explicitly.
Another example of plausible deniability is someone who actively avoids gaining certain knowledge of facts because it benefits that person not to know. As an example, a lawyer may suspect that facts exist that would hurt his case but decide not to investigate the issue because if he has actual knowledge, the rules of ethics might require him to reveal the facts to the opposing side.
Although the OP's example is from casual speech, plausible deniability, seems appropriate "when someone implies something without directly saying it, so they can deny they said what they were implying".
Idiom is the word for this.
You can imply something while saying something else later to deny what you were saying.
