The pattern this week is addition. The president said a thing, the thing was bad, and by the time it reached your feed somebody had added a word, a target, a venue, or an entire vision of the apocalypse. The additions were unnecessary in every case, which is the finding worth keeping. What follows is what he said, what got added, and what was underneath once the additions were removed.
Trump told Iran to nuke Los Angeles and San Diego
The claim, from Monday night onward, in a hundred variations: the president told Iran to nuke Los Angeles and San Diego. Some versions had him “inviting” the attack, some had him “begging” for it, and the word nuke was in most of them. A reader of this publication asked on Tuesday morning whether it was real, because it did not sound like a thing a president could say and still be president on Wednesday.
What happened when it was checked. The transcript, from ABC7 and matching CNN and Mediaite, is of the Grand Island, Nebraska, rally on Monday, in the section about the cost of the war. The president said gas prices were “just artificial” and “a little bit high,” and then “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe.” Then: “They can take out a city.” “Let them take out Los Angeles.” “Let them take out San Diego.” “This is a very small price to pay.” The crowd applauded at the names.
So the quote is real, and the two cities are real, and the applause is real. What is missing is the word nuke, which he did not say, and the address, because he was not speaking to Iran. He was making an argument to a Nebraska crowd that a high gas price is cheap insurance against a hostile power that “can take out a city,” and he reached for two California cities as examples of what could be taken. The grammar is the grammar of a hypothetical. The sound in the room was the sound of an imperative, which is why the governor of California and both senators and the mayors of both cities heard it the way the crowd did.
What was true underneath. Two things. First, the capability he described does not exist: Iran’s longest-range missiles reach about 2,000 kilometers, Los Angeles is about 12,000 from Tehran, and no intelligence service credits Iran with a nuclear weapon or anything that reaches this hemisphere. The hypothetical was built on a threat the president’s own war is supposed to have ended. Second, and this is the one to keep, a president named two American cities as the ones an enemy could take out, called their loss a small price, and got a cheer for it, in a week when San Diego’s own carrier was coming home from that war. The nuke was added by the internet. The rest he supplied himself.