Weekly Round[s] Up: July 21-27, 2025
Welcome back to another Weekly Round[s] Up. Here in DC, we continue to work on confirming President Trump’s nominees. Despite facing a historic level of obstruction from the other side of the aisle, the Senate is continuing to confirm nominees at a record pace. As of this past week, the Senate has confirmed 105 of President Trump’s nominees to positions in the executive and judicial branches. This is almost double the number of nominees that had been confirmed this far into President Trump’s first term. In addition, we’ve taken 435 roll call votes, which is more votes than the Senate has taken during some entire years. All this to say that we’re moving at a fast pace to get nominees in place and implement the agenda voted on by the American people. More on the rest of my week in my Weekly Round[s] Up:
South Dakota groups I met with: Melissa Magstadt, South Dakota’s Secretary of Health; South Dakota representatives from the Oncology Nurse Society; Ryman LeBeau, Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe; Jim Speirs, Executive Director of Arts South Dakota; Janet Alkire, Chairwoman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; Brian Cooper with Maguire Iron; two South Dakota school psychologists in town for a national training; South Dakota’s class of Tomorrow’s Ag Leaders; Rabbi Mendel Alperowitz, founder of the Chabad Jewish Center of South Dakota; Ron Heiser with Pivotal Health Solutions; South Dakota representatives of 340B Health; and students representing South Dakota and Boys and Girls Nation.
South Dakota towns represented: Aberdeen, Andover, Brandon, Castlewood, Corsica, Eagle Butte, Groton, Hecla, Irene, Lake Preston, Madison, Pierre, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Wallace, Watertown and Yankton.
Other meetings: Representatives from Canada’s parliament; Jason Droege, CEO of Scale AI; Eric Jensen, CEO of ICEYE US; Dr. Greg Sorensen with RadNet; leaders from the Coalition for Health AI; and Will Lansing, CEO of FICO. I also attended our Senate Bible Study, where our verse of the week was Proverbs 13:24, and our Senate Prayer Breakfast, where I was our speaker this past week!
Hearings: I attended two hearings in the Senate Armed Services Committee. You can watch a clip of one of these hearings here.
Briefings and markups: I attended one classified briefing as part of my work on the Intelligence committee. I also attended a markup in the Appropriations committee to discuss our bills funding Interior and Environment, as well as Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
Legislation introduced: I introduced two pieces of legislation to address the critical shortage of housing across the country and create more affordable paths to owning a home for more Americans. Together the Unlocking Housing Supply Through Streamlined and Modernized Reviews Act and the Better Use of Intergovernmental & Local Development (BUILD) Housing Act would streamline the federal housing environmental review process to responsibly increase housing production and boost overall supply and lower cost. Read more here.
In addition, I introduced the Intelligence Community Property Security Act of 2025, legislation to establish a specific provision prohibiting unauthorized access to U.S. Intelligence Community property and strengthening the penalty for trespassing on property that is under jurisdiction of the United States intelligence community. Read more about this bill here.
Votes taken: 20 – we confirmed nine additional nominees this past week.
My staff in South Dakota visited: Aberdeen, Pierre, Redfield, Wall and Winner.
Steps taken: 46,792 steps or 21.14 miles.
Video of the week: I joined Stuart Varney on Fox Business this past week to discuss the ongoing conflict in Israel:
