Michael Knowles

Bernie Sanders, same thing.

It is very easy to become accustomed to Trump's ravings and laugh them off.

That's a dangerous thing to do.

When Trump states a whole civilization will die tonight, he is threatening to commit genocide.

We cannot allow that to happen.

Congress must end this war now.

Ten years later and people are still befuddled, befuddled.

Now the rejoinder.

To the observation that Trump obviously wasn't going to commit a genocide, wasn't going to set off a nuke.

The rejoinder is, well, he threatened to wipe out a whole civilization.

He threatened that they would be living in hell.

So what?

You can't trust what Trump says?

That's what you're saying, Michael?

Michael, you're saying that the lesson of this whole episode is that you can't trust what Trump says.

Excuse me.

You can trust what Trump says.

if you know what he means.

You see, words have a tie to an objective reality, but they also mean different things depending on the circumstances in which they are said, and depending on who is saying them.

Because different people have different credibility, different people speak to different audiences.