His comments generalize to the extreme. From what I can tell (reading about it just now) lying is considered a sin unless you’re someone in a particular situation and you’re lying to a specific person for a very limited number of applicable circumstances. It seems that unless you meet all of these criteria, your lie is a sin. I think part and parcel of that is you don’t lie to yourself and falsely believe that a situation applies to you. As far as I can tell, Islam is just admitting the truth about human nature, that people need to navigate situations that will technically make them “liars”. I think this change was likely introduced in religious thought after examining how people still lied even after lying was established as a sin.