Weekly Round[s] Up: April 28 - May 11, 2025

Welcome back to another edition of the Weekly Round[s] Up. It has been a busy couple of weeks back in DC after the Easter holiday. However, we’ve had 31 South Dakota groups visit DC over the past two weeks, bringing a bit of home to Capitol Hill and a bright spot in our busy days! In addition to those meetings, I’ve been attending hearings, voting on President Trump’s nominees on the floor and sitting in on classified briefings. I even had the opportunity to introduce a couple of nominees at their Senate confirmation hearings over the past two weeks! More on this and the rest of my schedule in my Weekly Round[s] Up:

South Dakota groups I met with: Over 30 - South Dakota Telecom Association; South Dakota members of the Association of Nurse Anesthetists; the South Dakota Snowmobile Association; South Dakota members of the American College of Physicians Services; South Dakota Rural Electric Association; the Independent Insurance Agents of South Dakota; Barry Dunn, President of South Dakota State University; South Dakota Emergency Nurses Association; the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce; South Dakota tribal students partaking in the Native Youth Policy Summit Expo; Benjamin Ostebee, South Dakota’s representative for the National Community Pharmacists Association; South Dakota Emergency Nurses Association; members of the South Dakota Education Association; Charles and Heather Maude and their two children, Lyle and Kennedy; virtual meeting with Chamberlain High School’s AP Government class; Teonna Randle, who represented South Dakota at the national Poetry Out Loud competition (and placed second overall!); leaders from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe; the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations; members of Northern Great Plains Joint Venture; the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, including President Justin Tupper of St. Onge; South Dakota members of the Association of American Railroads; members of the South Dakota Farmers Union; leaders from the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe; South Dakota members of the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association; leaders from Thrivent; South Dakota members of the American Kidney Fund; South Dakota Concerned Women for America; South Dakota Dairy Producers; and Associated General Contractors of South Dakota.  

South Dakota towns represented: Aberdeen, Bison, Box Elder, Brandon, Brookings, Burbank, Caputa, Chamberlain, Custer, Dakota Dunes, Dell Rapids, De Smet, Flandreau, Freeman, Gettysburg, Groton, Hermosa, Highmore, Hot Springs, Huron, Ipswich, Kimball, Lake Andes, Madison, Milbank, Mission, Mitchell, North Sioux City, Parade, Pierre, Plankinton, Rapid City, Reliance, Salem, Seneca, Sioux Falls, St. Onge, Tea, Vermillion, Watertown, Wessington Springs, Winner, Woonsocket and Wall.

Other meetings: Dr. Robert Kadlec, nominee for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Deterrence, Chemical, and Biological Defense Policy and Programs; Michael Obadal, nominee for Under Secretary for the Army; Adam Telle, nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works; Professor Lars-Hendrik Röller, Chairman of the Berlin Global Dialogue; Rwanda's Minister of Foreign Affairs; Pious Jung, CEO of CJ America; spoke at a fireside chat for the Hill & Valley Forum; attended the SeedAI Breakfast for AI Policy Practitioners; Thomas Tull, founder of Tulco LLC; Christopher Eisgruber, President of Princeton University; Katie Sutton, nominee for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy; Ambassador Khazar Ibrahim, Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the United States; Bishop Zaidan of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Sean Callahan, CEO of Catholic Relief Services; Scott Donnelly, CEO of Textron; Binalf Andualem, Ethiopia’s Ambassador to the United States; members of National Grid Renewables; King Abdullah II of Jordan; Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi; members of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association; Salim Ramji, CEO of Vanguard; and Michael Powers, nominee for Deputy Undersecretary of Defense.

I spoke at a breakfast hosted by The Hill about artificial intelligence.

Hearings: I attended nine hearings over the past two weeks. Five were in the Senate Armed Services Committee, three were in the Senate Committee on Appropriations and one was for the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. During the Banking Committee hearing, I spoke about the importance of reauthorizing and reforming the National Flood Insurance Program. Watch that clip here. In addition, I introduced my friend and former advisor Katie Sutton at her nomination hearing to serve as the next Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy, which you can watch a clip of here.

I also had the honor of introducing Luke Lindberg of South Dakota during his nomination hearing at the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. He’ll do a great job as Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs. You can watch a clip of my introduction here.

Classified briefings: 3 – two were for the Select Committee on Intelligence. I attended one classified briefing as part of my work as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity.

Votes taken: 29 votes over two weeks – most of these were on additional nominees to executive positions. While the confirmation of these nominees may not grab headlines like the cabinet-level nominees, everyone being confirmed right now is critical to the Trump administration and the work they’re doing for the American people. 

My staff in South Dakota visited: Aberdeen, Belle Fourche, Gregory, Lower Brule, Spearfish, Sturgis, Wagner and Winner.

Steps taken: 52,890 steps or 26.31 miles during week one; 58,202 steps or 29.03 miles during week two.

Video of the week: I joined Fox Business to discuss the budget reconciliation and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: