it isn't clear to me how he was supposed to realize that by "tea party" you were actually referring to a specific list of politicians you had in mind, but had n

it isn't clear to me how he was supposed to realize that by "tea party" you were actually referring to a specific list of politicians you had in mind, but had not named. would a different list of tea party-connected politicians suffice, or did he specifically need to guess those three in order to have good "research ability"?