A "string of words in a rhetorical fashion" is commonly known as a sentence. These have meanings. There is nothing "rhetorical" about regulating every aspect of people's lives. It was taken literally because that's exactly what it means.
The Left has always had a very dark totalitarian aspect to it hidden under a cloak of lofty, self-righteous rhetoric. This is simply a case of that cloak being dropped inadvertently and very temporarily. He can't say he didn't say it, he did say he didn't mean it, but he did and he does.
Not in a hundred years will he be able to walk that back. Those horses are running and the illegal aliens mucking out the barn stalls just lost a paycheck.