The notion that Americans should dial down their incendiary rhetoric is undeniable, but that message cannot be delivered credibly by the person who literally sent a mob to the US Capitol, and then sat back and cheered the thugs who assaulted cops for three hours.
The plea to ease up on hate speech cannot be made by the guy who invented a patois of political violence, who prods supporters to assault hecklers, threatens to shoot undocumented immigrants and looters, jeers the husband of a rival who was assaulted with a hammer, and refers to opposition as “vermin.”
And the idea that the toxic talk has gone too far sounds hollow coming from a demagogue who thinks Hillary Clinton’s fate might best be settled by “Second Amendment people,” that Liz Cheney should be sent before a military tribunal, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, should be executed.
This is the political atmosphere that Donald Trump has nurtured, so when he whines about how “the rhetoric of Biden and Harris” has inspired two troubled people (both likely Republicans) to shoot at him with assault rifles, it can be dismissed as one of the most pitiful attempts at gaslighting from a deranged felon who has made a career of it.
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Rhetoric does mean speech. It’s usually used in a political context, so incediary rhetoric would be incidiary (political) speech.
Other than that, rhetoric is often equated with the policies talked about, so Trump’s rhetoric would be anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, pro-Russia, etc.
As for the ‘it’s not rhetoric’ part of the title - I think they meant it’s not just speech, it’s verifiable - so no direct meaning of ‘lie’ anywhere although the meaning of ‘lie’ is heavily implied.