You’re trying to nitpick apart the obvious... in fact it sounds like you are arguing with your own fears.
Trump said:
"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families,"First of all, do you disagree with the quote? If so, please point me to the correct one; if not, then let's continue.
The context in which it was said (according to this very quote) is the fact that "they [the terrorists] say they don't care about their lives"... and Trump is proposing "taking out their families" as an alternative. I read that as "an alternative to taking/threatening the lives of the terrorists themselves"; do you disagree?
If that's accurate, then Trump is proposing a very simple, straight-forward idea of, "Fine: you don't care if YOU live or die, Mohammedan Martyr? Then let's go after your families; maybe you care about THEIR lives!"
I really don't see how "taking the easiest and most common meaning of a phrase" could possibly be called "nit-picking". In fact, the copious spin attempted by pro-Trump people seems to be far more indicative of "nit-picking" and "nuancing" what's otherwise a very easy phrase to understand (which Trump repeated three times in that quote, alone, so it's not likely to be a slip of the tongue).
in fact it sounds like you are arguing with your own fears.
"Fears"? You just conjured that out of thin air, FRiend. I was commenting on Trump's comments, and on the plain meaning of them. You suggest that Trump's meaning is a less obvious, secondary (or tertiary, or quaternary, etc.) meaning? Fine... make your case; but let's not distract the issue with cheap mind-reading and red herrings.