On Saturday, MS NOW host Ali Velshi welcomed Prof. Timothy Snyder to his show to discuss President Trump’s Truth Social post from earlier in the week that warned “a whole civilization will die” if Iran did not agree to a ceasefire. According to Snyder, the post could be enough to drag American service members in front of a Nuremburg-like trial on charges of genocide.
Both Velshi and Snyder admitted that they were operating on the assumption that the post itself is what mattered, not whether Trump actually meant it or was just being his usual hyperbolic self, which allowed them to dumb down the definition of genocide to the point that they rendered the word meaningless.
Prof. Timothy Snyder suggests U.S. troops that bomb a bridge could be charged with genocide because of Trump's social media posts "It's also the case that if they don't, they are now under the shadow of genocide. Because Mr. Trump has made clear that an intention, a determinable… pic.twitter.com/rndATBYa8L
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 11, 2026
Velshi argued that the fact that Iran agreed to the ceasefire also means nothing:
You've built this model on the fact that you have studied atrocities unfolding in Nazi Germany and the collapse of democracies across Eastern Europe, and the struggles that they've had. What do you recognize and what has happened in the past when dictators and authoritarians say these types of things, and what is the thing that people miss? In other words, what's the thing that Americans shouldn't miss based on what happened on Tuesday, regardless of the fact that it didn't come to pass on Tuesday night? That's almost beside the point.
Snyder began by focusing on Trump, “Yeah. I mean, number one is, is that the words—and this is a point you made very well—the words change us. If we just let them fall into us. We are changed. We normalize. We will passively normalize unless we challenge the words.”
However, Snyder then moved on to the men and women in uniform, “And the second is the notion of orders. It was after the Second World War at Nuremberg it was specifically decided that just following orders wasn't a defense. In other words, there are norms, there are laws. There are other things out there besides the vertical chain of command. And this is something else to note. It's not just that soldiers and officers are right to reject illegal orders.”
Snyder continued, “It's also the case that if they don't, they are now under the shadow of genocide. Because Mr. Trump has made clear that an intention, a determinable intention, of this conflict was to destroy a civilization, which means that if you destroy a bridge, if you destroy a dam, if you destroy a school, it's not just a war crime in itself. It could be construed as being part of a much larger war crime, or, as you say, the crime of crimes, genocide itself.”
If Trump really wanted to commit genocide, there would be more than one school that was hit due to outdated intelligence and that used to be part of a naval base that Snyder could point to. The fact that Snyder considers destroying a bridge a war crime that could be proof of genocide should disqualify him from ever being taken seriously again. It is one thing for Velshi and Snyder to dislike Trump’s hyperbole, but anyone with any historical knowledge of previous American wars and any critical thinking skills knows Trump was not going to literally destroy a civilization even if Iran refused to accept the ceasefire offer. Those who wear the uniform deserve better than an American who ran away to Canada smearing them on TV.
Here is a transcript for the April 10 show:
MS NOW Velshi
4/11/2026
11:14 AM ET
ALI VELSHI: You've built this model on the fact that you have studied atrocities unfolding in Nazi Germany and the collapse of democracies across Eastern Europe, and the struggles that they've had. What do you recognize and what has happened in the past when dictators and authoritarians say these types of things, and the thing that people miss? In other words, what's the thing that Americans shouldn't miss based on what happened on Tuesday, regardless of the fact that it didn't come to pass on Tuesday night? That's almost beside the point.
TIMOTHY SNYDER: Yeah. I mean, number one is, is that the words—and this is a point you made very well—the words change us. If we just let them fall into us. We are changed. We normalize. We will passively normalize unless we challenge the words. And the second is the notion of orders. It was after the Second World War at Nuremberg it was specifically decided that just following orders wasn't a defense.
In other words, there are norms, there are laws. There are other things out there besides the vertical chain of command. And this is something else to note. It's not just that soldiers and officers are right to reject illegal orders.
It's also the case that if they don't, they are now under the shadow of genocide. Because Mr. Trump has made clear that an intention, a determinable intention, of this conflict was to destroy a civilization, which means that if you destroy a bridge, if you destroy a dam, if you destroy a school, it's not just a war crime in itself. It could be construed as being part of a much larger war crime, or, as you say, the crime of crimes, genocide itself.
