Ben Rhodes

And look, one more thing.

Well, I'd also say, by the way, the defense spending thing that everybody was crowing about, it's going to take years for Europe to do that.

If they do, it's not going to be relevant to Ukraine.

But speaking of the future, one more thing from Munich I wanted to get to, which is that there were as many as eight annexations

potential 2028 Democrats, people who might run for president in 2020 who are at the conference.

There was a lot of buzz about this.

The Europeans were very curious about these people because they don't know all of them particularly well.

So we had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, obviously,

We had Governors Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, who is now dipping his toe in the water, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Melissa Slotkin of Michigan, and former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

I will say that all the buzz in Munich was about AOC because she had not been on the world stage this way.

She spoke about what you mentioned, which is the danger of authoritarianism.

She also had some missteps.

I want to play a clip that has kind of both the strength and the thing that people are picking on her about from AOC.

So let's hear that clip.

So, look, we're not picking here on AOC, but I want to say, first of all, that, you know, the Europeans are pretty, you know, when they talk to me, disappointed, and Democrats, where are you guys, what's the plan?

In a way, we're like the Europeans, and I'm the Democrat here, you're the journalist, but, like, we haven't figured out a way to stand up to Trump either.

I will say there was a lot of excitement about AOC.

She's just as popular with young Europeans as she is with young Americans.

And I, just from my perspective...

You know, I thought her presentation on authoritarianism was really strong.