Senate Republicans on Thursday are weighing whether to bow out of a major international gathering next week as leaders juggle a looming shutdown of the Homeland Security Department.

This year’s Munich Security Conference — a marquee transatlantic gathering that begins Feb. 13 — has taken on new urgency in the wake of President Donald Trump’s threats to invade Greenland, a Danish territory, and tariff core NATO allies over the dispute. Trump backed down, but dozens of lawmakers planned to go in order to shore up ties and reaffirm America’s commitment to NATO.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Munich mainstay and Trump ally, said he won’t attend unless a DHS deal is reached. The department is on a short-term stopgap funding measure while Democrats are demanding new limits and oversight on Immigration and Customs Enforcement practices, which Republicans say would undercut security.

“The reason we go to these places is to have an American voice, and if we can’t get our act together here, a lot of people are wondering what we’re going to do about Russia,” he said. “People say if you want to be safe at home you have to engage the world, and I agree.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another regular at the conference, told reporters his decision to go would hinge on the status of cross-party negotiations.

“Game day decision,” said Tillis, the top Republican on the Senate’s NATO Observer Group. “It’s gonna be based on how well we’re working and if the Democrats are being reasonable. That’s one thing, and if they’re not, it’s another thing.”

Not all Republicans are on the fence. Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said he is going to the Munich Security Conference again this year and doesn’t anticipate the threat of a DHS shutdown derailing his trip, which includes Italy’s defense ministry and the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe’s parliamentary assembly in Vienna.

A spending deal that became law this week gives lawmakers until next Friday to negotiate a Homeland Security funding package. But funding will lapse if Republicans and Democrats can’t forge a deal by next weekend or don’t pass another stopgap.

Republican leaders stopped short of telling senators what they should do.

Earlier in the day, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that it’s a “serious question” whether senators should suspend their travel — including to Munich — until the impasse ends. “If we get to the end of next week and we’re in a shutdown posture, I think that the idea of people going on trips, no matter how justified or well-intended they are, it seems like that ought to be a non-starter,” he said.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, the top Democrat on the panel that controls defense funding, argued lawmakers from both parties should attend the international conference despite the funding standoff to shore up the transatlantic alliance. Trump’s Greenland pressure campaign “profoundly undermined” European confidence in the U.S., he said.

“We have a genuine problem in our transatlantic relationship,” Coons told reporters. “And to cancel sending a large delegation to Munich simply so that we can figure out how to actually do policing in a democracy sends exactly the wrong message.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is pitching fellow Republicans on expanding who can sue over the now-defunct Jack Smith investigation — and Graham claims he has a key supporter in Speaker Mike Johnson.

Graham said in a statement to Blue Light News that he had spoken with Johnson about his push to allow lawsuits from people he claims were improperly targeted by the former special counsel during his probe of the 2020 election. Johnson, he said, is amenable to expanding who can sue beyond just the handful of GOP senators who had their phone records seized.

“I had a very good conversation with Speaker Johnson who does, in my view, want to open the courthouse doors to people wronged and hold Jack Smith accountable,” Graham said. “He wants to expand the ability to sue to more people, not less, consistent with Congressional ethics rules. I share that view.”

A spokesperson for Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.

The interchamber communication is the latest turn in a monthslong saga over letting Graham and other senators sue the Justice Department for potentially millions of dollars over Smith’s decision to subpoena their phone records.

The provision was tucked into a spending bill enacted in November, prompting an uproar from Democrats and House Republicans who saw it as a case of secret self-dealing. The House in turn moved last month to insert its own provision in a separate spending bill undoing the effort — prompting the South Carolina Republican to lash out at the speaker during a floor speech last week.

Graham briefly held up the spending bill but won a commitment from Senate Majority Leader John Thune for a separate vote on an expanded provision that would allow not only senators to sue, but also other members of Congress, groups and individuals.

“We’re going to give everyone in the South Carolina delegation the chance to open the courthouse doors to conservatives who were targeted by Jack Smith and the Biden DOJ,” Graham said Thursday.

At the same time, Graham has sought to emphasize that his legislation is not aimed at self-enrichment, claiming to reporters last week that the Senate Ethics Committee confirmed he could not personally profit.

The Ethics Committee guidance, which was reviewed by Blue Light News, holds that senators are not entitled to receive monetary compensation under the original provision enacted in November but can seek a declaratory judgment and/or injunctive relief. Graham’s forthcoming legislation, his office said, will follow the committee guidelines.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday left open the possibility the administration could sue President Donald Trump’s pick for Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, if he doesn’t deliver on the president’s desired interest rate cuts.

Trump said Saturday he would consider suing Warsh if he did not cut interest rates. The Fed is an independent agency.

When asked by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Senate Banking Committee hearing about the possibility of a lawsuit, Bessent refused to answer.

“That is up to the president,” he said, before adding: “Warsh is highly qualified.”

The Trump administration, including Bessent, has been sharply critical of the Fed and its current Chair Jerome Powell for its interest rate policy and its handling of a building renovation. The Department of Justice is investigating Powell in relation to the renovation, moves Powell has called “pretexts.”

Bessent furthered that criticism Thursday, saying Treasury cannot print “magic money” to solve some of the nation’s economic issues — referring to the Fed’s ability to expand the amount of money in circulation, a power both Bessent and Warsh say has been overused.

The comments echo remarks Bessent made in a fiery House hearing Wednesday. “The Fed has lost accountability,” he said. “It lost the trust of the American people when it allowed the greatest inflation in 49 years.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has said he will not vote for Warsh until the Powell probe is resolved, said senators had already heard from Powell about the cost overruns.

“[Powell] was testifying and we didn’t see a crime,” he said.

There were multiple moments of tension between the Treasury secretary and Democratic senators Thursday, similar to Wednesday’s at-times rocky House meeting.

Bessent took shots at Warren, with whom he has feuded publicly in the past. When she asked why he had previously written that tariffs would be inflationary — an economic effect he and the administration argue is not at play today — he answered that he is not always right.

“A year before [writing that letter to investors], I also wrote that I thought Senator Warren would be the Democratic presidential nominee. So my predictions have been bad,” he said.

In one line of questioning from multiple senators, Bessent was asked how he, as acting director of the Internal Revenue Service, would handle the president’s $10 billion dollar lawsuit against the tax agency, filed last week.

“It’s a Justice department matter,” he said. “I will follow the law.” He acknowledged that if the president were to be successful, the funds would come out of the Treasury General Account, the checking account of the government that he oversees.