President Donald Trump has found a disturbing new refrain for discussing Iran: the imagined destruction of Los Angeles and San Diego. The ambiguity surrounding his words is not a defect in the message; it is what gives the message its political sting.

At a campaign rally in San Antonio on Wednesday, Trump doubled down on his controversial vision of what Iran might do if it obtained a nuclear weapon. “Let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles,” he said.

At Tuesday’s rally in Nebraska, Trump raised the scenario while discussing the war in Iran and gas prices, saying, “They can take out a city.” He followed with, “Let them take, let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego.”

The audience cheered. Trump then called the situation “a very small price to pay” and said the war would be over very soon.

Democrats reacted with alarm, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego. He is deranged and dangerous,” Newsom wrote on X.

The White House portrayed Trump’s remarks as a hypothetical about what could have happened if he had not intervened in the Middle East. “He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said.

That cleanup persuaded some fact checkers, even though there is no evidence that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon. The official explanation also avoids confronting how Trump delivered the line and why his phrasing produced cheers.

Trump’s pacing, tone and emphasis allowed several meanings to hang in the air. One logical implication was that American cities could face danger, but that interpretation depends on the false premise that Iran was approaching such nuclear capacity or had ballistic missiles capable of reaching those cities.

At the same time, Trump presented the hypothetical with striking firmness. His repeated use of “let” made the destruction sound almost permissible or desirable, which is likely why members of his MAGA audience began cheering.

The choice of Los Angeles and San Diego also did not appear random. Both are scenic, liberal cities that are not especially vulnerable compared with other cities, and Trump’s delivery may have invited his supporters to imagine the destruction of places led by Democrats.

Trump returned to the scenario Wednesday in Texas, where he asked, “You want to see a horror show?” He later said, “We’re not going to let that happen,” making the hypothetical framing more explicit.

There were fewer cheers that time, but Trump still repeatedly invoked the nightmare of American cities being bombarded. It is difficult to imagine the same reception from a MAGA crowd if he had spoken so cavalierly about the annihilation of Jacksonville or Oklahoma City.

Facing a roar of criticism Thursday, Trump defended himself on Truth Social, writing, “What I was talking about was that a temporary increase in the price of Gasoline is a small price to pay for Iran not having a Nuclear Weapon and, if you want to see a big price, can you imagine what it would be like if they bombed San Diego and/or Los Angeles?”

Such an extensive defense of his own rhetoric is extremely unusual for Trump, suggesting he understood why the remarks disturbed so many people. Giving him the benefit of the doubt is harder because of his history of politicizing disaster aid and social services in ways that favor red states over blue states.

The debate is further complicated by Trump’s increasingly elliptical and incoherent speech patterns. His habit of interrupting his own train of thought makes his meaning harder to determine while preserving room for competing interpretations.

Los Angeles and San Diego are safe from an Iranian attack, and not because of Trump’s foolish war. The more troubling question is whether Trump would take a genuine national security threat against cities he dislikes seriously, or whether indifference and spite would shape his response.