Weekly Round[s] Up: November 17-23, 2025
Welcome back to another Weekly Round[s] Up. We are now back on a regular, in-session schedule after finally getting out of the longest government shutdown in US history. It was a busy week filled with meetings, briefings, events, votes and interviews, but we got a lot done!
Additionally, I attended the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia this past weekend. I spent this time in meetings with our partners and allies from around the world. I also spoke on a panel titled “Democracies Design Doodads” discussing innovation in democratic countries, specifically regarding artificial intelligence.
More on the rest of my week in my Weekly Round[s] Up:
South Dakota groups I visited with: South Dakota representatives with John Deere; South Dakota Family Career and Community Leaders of America; South Dakota members of the Clean Fuels Alliance; Dr. Ashlea Semmens with the American Society of Breast Surgeons; Mike Salem with McDonald’s; Shirley Hauge and Emily Parish with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association; South Dakota Telecommunications Association; Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and SAGE Development Authority.
Met with South Dakotans from: Aberdeen, Belle Fourche, Bison, Blackhawk, Clear Lake, Colman, Deadwood, Harrisburg, Herreid, Kimball, Rapid City, Salem, Sioux Falls, Volga and Wall.
Other meetings: Mackenzie Eaglen, Defense Analyst at the American Enterprise Institute; James Bracken, John Diaz and Anne Chai with Zurich North America; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Secretary of Education Linda McMahon; Summer Mersinger, CEO of Blockchain Association; John Collison with Stripe; and the Hon. Stephan Mayer, MP, Member of Foreign Affairs Committee, German Bundestag; and Christian Forstner, Director of Hanns Seidel Foundation USA.
Briefings: I attended two Senate Select Committee on Intelligence closed briefings this past week.
Senate Prayer Breakfast: I attended our Senate Prayer Breakfast Wednesday morning, where Senator Roger Marshall from Kansas was the speaker.
H-2B Letter: This week Senator Angus King (I-Maine) and I sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor requesting that they release the maximum allowable number of additional H-2B visas for Fiscal Year 2026, consistent with the previous three years. Thirty-one other Senators signed the letter with us and now we wait for their response. These visas are crucial to South Dakota because our seasonal tourism and hospitality industries rely on H-2B workers to fill jobs that simply can’t be staffed locally during peak months.
Votes taken: 5 – This week I voted on nominee Ho Nieh, of Alabama, to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Yea). I also voted on the Lummis Buffalo Resource Management Plan Amendment CRA (Yea) and on the Schiff Oil and Gas CRA (Nay).
My staff in South Dakota visited: Milbank, Revillo, Sturgis, Webster and Wall.
Steps taken: 72,973 steps or 34.18 miles.
Photos of the Week
American Society of Breast Surgeons (left) and South Dakota Telecommunications Association (right)
The Salvation Army (left) and the Speech-Language-Hearing Association (right)
