Speaker Mike Johnson cancelled the official House congressional delegation to the annual Munich Security Conference, pulling hotel reservations, military flights, and credentials for lawmakers who had planned to attend. The move came after the Department of Homeland Security shut down at midnight on Feb. 13, when a two-week stopgap funding measure expired, and the Senate left Washington without a deal.

A House leadership aide told The Hill that cancelling CODELs is standard operating procedure during a DHS shutdown. Several bipartisan Senate delegations will still attend the conference. It remains unclear whether any House Republicans will be present.

According to the Hill, House Democrats didn't take it quietly. A parade of them — including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Jim Himes, Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Sarah McBride, and freshman Rep. Yassamin Ansari — flew to Munich anyway, funding their own travel to deliver what amounts to an opposition-party foreign policy roadshow on European soil.

The Shutdown Democrats Engineered — Then Complained About

The DHS funding lapse exists because Senate Democrats refused to reach a deal. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have been demanding sweeping reforms to the White House's immigration enforcement tactics, including a full overhaul of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The White House sent a counterproposal. Democratic leaders rejected it as falling short.

Rep. Ansari, in a video statement Thursday, framed the situation differently:

"Because of the Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, because Republicans refuse to make any compromises or any changes to ICE after the deadly murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, we have a shutdown, and therefore, we cannot go on official CODELS. I've decided, along with a number of my Democratic colleagues, to go anyway."

Note the sleight of hand. Democrats blocked DHS funding over demands to restructure immigration enforcement — a non-starter for the majority that voters elected — and then branded the resulting shutdown as Republican. It's a neat trick: hold funding hostage, blame the other side for the hostage situation, then use the crisis you created as your reason to freelance on the world stage.

Rep. Joe Wilson, a senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, cut through it cleanly in remarks to Politico. He called it a "shame" that lawmakers could miss the key conference, but defended Johnson's decision:

"It's a very responsible position by the Speaker which matches the irresponsibility of the Senate Democrats to shut down the government. And so the responsible act is to be ever available to end the shutdown."

That's the core tension. Johnson kept his members in Washington — available to vote, available to govern, available to end the lapse the moment Democrats come to the table. Democrats scattered to Bavaria.

The Munich Audition

What exactly are House Democrats doing at a global security conference without official standing, credentials, or a mandate?

Ansari made the purpose explicit. She said she wants to make clear that Trump "does not define the United States, that we are committed to our allies, to NATO, to U.S. credibility and leadership around the world."

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, posted on X:

"Some of us are going over anyway on our own dime to reassure and thank our allies."

And Ocasio-Cortez used a panel discussion at the conference on Friday to frame the trip in dramatic terms:

"One of the reasons why not just myself, but … many Democrats that are here as well, is because we want to tell a larger story, that what is happening is indeed very grave, and we are in a new era, domestically and globally."

Pelosi attended in what her spokesperson described as her "personal capacity" as a member of the Munich Security Conference Advisory Council. Her spokesman, Ian Krager, offered the kind of statement that reads like it was drafted by committee:

"Her presence reflects decades of leadership on transatlantic collaboration and underscores the importance of sustained U.S. partners at a moment of profound geopolitical uncertainty."

"Speaker Pelosi remains committed to strengthening partnerships that advance collective security, economic prosperity and democratic governance."

Rep. Jason Crow told NBC News it was the "wrong move" to cancel the delegation and argued that U.S. officials other than Secretary of State Marco Rubio need to be present at the event.

Shadow Diplomacy or Political Theater?

Something is clarifying about watching minority-party lawmakers fly overseas to tell foreign audiences that their own government doesn't speak for America. This isn't diplomacy. Secretary Rubio was already at the conference representing the United States. These Democrats weren't filling a vacuum — they were creating a competing signal, deliberately muddying the waters at an event where allied nations are trying to read American intentions.

The United States has one president, one secretary of state, and one foreign policy at a time. Democrats spent years insisting on that principle when it suited them. Now, a handful of House members with no official delegation, no credentials, and no negotiating authority are presenting themselves as a parallel American voice at one of the world's premier security gatherings.

Consider what this actually communicates to European allies: America's opposition party is so eager to undermine its own government's diplomatic posture that members will pay out of pocket for the privilege. That doesn't project strength. It projects fracture, which is precisely the opposite of what our allies need to see.

The ICE Demand Behind It All

The DHS shutdown — and by extension, the cancelled delegation — traces back to a single Democratic demand: overhauling ICE. Jeffries and Schumer seized on the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, by ICE agents in Minnesota as leverage to extract sweeping changes to immigration enforcement. The White House offered a counterproposal. Democrats said it wasn't enough.

This is worth pausing on. Democrats are holding DHS funding hostage — affecting border security, TSA operations, FEMA, the Secret Service, and the Coast Guard — because they want to restructure the agency responsible for removing illegal immigrants from the country. The Minnesota shooting is a tragedy that deserves scrutiny and accountability. But leveraging it to dismantle the enforcement infrastructure the administration was elected to strengthen is not oversight. It's opportunism dressed as compassion.

And the lawmakers who couldn't stay in Washington to negotiate a resolution found the time to fly to Germany.

Priorities, Revealed

Johnson made the straightforward call: during a government shutdown, official travel stops. Members stay available. The work comes first. Democrats chose differently. They chose Munich over legislating, foreign audiences over constituents, and political performance over the DHS employees working without pay.

The conference will end. The cameras will move on. And the shutdown will still be waiting — right where they left it.