He's probably quite aware of what the intended meaning is. The point is that since we're in effect always talking about 'verisimilitudes', calling this or that an "illusion" is silly, because it implies that we didn't realize our models are just models ("You mean to tell me the Standard Model isn't a 1-to-1 mapping from reality to our brains??? NOOOOO * worldview shattered * ").

For example, the spacetime explanation for gravity is also a model, and is also likely to be an "illusion." Making note of that is theoretical physics 101... or at least it should be.