Weekly Round[s] Up: July 14-20, 2025

Welcome back to another edition of the Weekly Round[s] Up. The talk of the town this past week was the Senate’s vote on the President’s budget rescissions package. After our fourth vote-a-rama this year, we passed this package which claws back $9 billion in unnecessary federal spending for non-lifesaving foreign aid and taxpayer funded radio programs. I voted in favor of this legislation after working with the Trump administration to find unused climate change money to be reallocated to grants for tribal radio stations. These stations deliver critical emergency alerts and public safety information to some of the most rural areas in the country, and some stations could have seen up to 92% of their budget cut prior to this fix. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in the Senate and the administration to cut wasteful spending. More on the rest of my week in my Weekly Round[s] Up:

South Dakota groups I met with: South Dakota members of the American Physical Therapy Association; leaders from Daktronics, including Interim CEO Brad Wiemann; South Dakota members of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives; Griffin Petersen, who was in town representing the South Dakota Board of Regents; South Dakota members of the Council for Exceptional Children; South Dakota Soybean; South Dakota FFA’s state officer board; students from Howard Junior High School; leaders from MMS Products; Missouri River Energy Services; and South Dakota Corn.

South Dakota towns represented: Aberdeen, Alcester, Avon, Beresford, Box Elder, Brandon, Brookings, Chancellor, Crooks, Groton, Hamill, Howard, Huron, Iroquois, Lennox, Mitchell, Mount Vernon, North Sioux City, Pierpont, Pierre, Platte, Pukwana, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Sisseton, Sturgis, Turton, Valley Springs and Whitewood.

Other meetings: Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins; the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies Board of Directors; Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, nominee to lead U.S. Africa Command; Vice Admiral Frank Bradley, nominee to lead U.S. Special Operations Command; leadership from the National Shooting Sports Foundation; Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States; Dan Driscoll, Secretary of the Army; Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics and ADM Daryl Caudle, nominee for Chief of Naval Operations.

I attended our Senate Bible Study, where our verse of the week was 2 Corinthians 10:5, and our Senate Prayer Breakfast, where Senator Chris Coons of Delaware was our speaker.

Briefings and markups: I held one classified briefing this past week as part of my work as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity. I also attended another markup in the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

Votes taken: 34 – we voted on a few nominees to positions within the Departments of Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security. We also voted on judicial positions in Tennessee and Missouri.

Most of these votes, however, were on the rescissions package that I mentioned earlier. Because it can pass with a simple majority vote, the other party can offer as many amendments as they want before final passage as a way of delaying the process. This is why we call it a vote-a-rama! However, we still were able to pass the rescissions package just after 2:00 AM on Thursday morning. I was glad to support it following a fix for tribal radio funding. Read my full statement on my vote here.

My staff in South Dakota visited: Aberdeen, Box Elder, Highmore, Madison, Miller, Mitchell, Parker, Rapid City, Wakonda, Watertown, Woonsocket and Yankton. 

Steps taken: 51,063 steps or 23.21 miles.

Photo of the week: Appreciated sitting down with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins as we continue to advocate for our producers and provide transparency in the food supply chain for consumers.