During a rally in Nebraska on Monday, the president of the United States of America defended his failed war in Iran by seemingly suggesting it would be fine if Iran took out Los Angeles and San Diego. Or maybe not, depending on how you hear him.

In his characteristic word salad defending high gas prices, he said: “With the war, it’s just artificial. It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, for keeping our country safe. They could take out a city.  Let ’em take, let ’em take out Los Angeles, let ’em take out San Diego. That’s.. this is a very small price to pay and it’s going to be over with very soon.”

Now, one interpretation, from a plain reading of that text, is that he was saying it would be “a very small price to pay” for Iran to “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego. Which would be crazy talk. Trump talk. Not to mention a bit of a non-sequitur. But then again, Trump talk.

In hearing it, though, it’s possible he was saying the war was justified to keep the country safe because Iran could take out a city and then vomited out the specific cities as examples of what could happen if Iran was allowed to continue being a threat to America. That’s the interpretation his supporters are defending online.

It didn’t help the latter interpretation, though, that the Nebraska crowd seemed to cheer as he said the bit about taking out LA and San Diego. Or that he picked two California cities, one of which is deep blue and the other which has become blue over the last decade. Or that he said, “Let ’em take out Los Angeles, let ’em take out San Diego” in the first place.

That Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria have all condemned the statement is obvious.

More of a surprise is Republican San Diego Supervisor Jim Desmond, who is running for an open congressional seat, taking to X to express his “disagreement” with the president. “Disagreement,” even vehement, is a bit, I don’t know, mild if one heard the president say it was fine to nuke millions of Americans to death but it is nonetheless significant that he would say something. One can disagree over tariff policies, but the annihilation of American cities seems to merit a “condemnation” or something like that.

“As a Navy veteran, I served to protect Americans, not write off American cities as an acceptable price of war,” Desmond declared. “Our job is to keep Americans safe, stand up to our enemies, and make sure a threat like that never becomes reality. No American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage.”

That’s all fair and basically true. Unfortunately, Desmond also basically agrees with the war and probably wouldn’t vote to stop it if he won the race to succeed Darrell Issa.

Even going with the charitable interpretation of Trump’s remarks, it’s just wrong. Iran has never been a serious threat to the United States, despite Trump now doing a cheap imitation of John McCain and Lindsey Graham. As the world has seen, Iran barely has anti-missile and anti-aircraft capabilities. It’s a sitting duck for whatever Israel and the United States want to do. Its only advantage is that it can strangle the world’s energy supply via the Strait of Hormuz under the threat of cheap drones.  But it only came to that after Trump chose to go to war.

And no, it’s not worth the increased cost of gas.

Anyway, if the president of the United States really meant to say it’d be fine if LA and San Diego were taken out, that’s another data point that Trump is probably losing his mind because that’s an insane thing to say. If he didn’t mean that, then wouldn’t it be great to have a president someday who can speak like an intelligible human being again?

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com