Weekly Round[s] Up: January 20-26, 2025

Welcome back to another edition of the Weekly Round[s] Up! It’s been a busy few days in DC, starting last week with President Trump’s inauguration and then beginning to confirm his nominees. Our first order of business last week was confirming our now-former colleague Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. His vote in the Senate was unanimous, and while we’ll miss having him as a colleague, he’ll do great work in his new role. We also voted in committee on some of President Trump’s nominees and passed a big piece of legislation related to cracking down on illegal immigration. We worked over the weekend to confirm two more critical cabinet members: Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and our fellow South Dakotan Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security. This is just the beginning as we work to get America back on track. Here’s my Weekly Round[s] Up:

South Dakota meetings: I met with Casey Peterson, chair of the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority; Dr. Benjamin Soukup, Chairman/CEO Emeritus at Communication Service for the Deaf; Dale Bartscher, Executive Director of South Dakota Right to Life; Peter Burwell, President and CEO of Burwell Enterprises; and the South Dakota Realtors Association.

Met with South Dakotans from: Aberdeen, Huron, Pierre, Rapid City, Sioux Falls and Watertown.

Cabinet nominee meetings: I met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). We had an excellent discussion on the need to incorporate AI in our health care. We agree that improving quality of life is crucial and that AI can help in the development of vaccines as well as curing chronic illnesses in the near future. We also had a very frank discussion about concerns from South Dakota farmers and ranchers regarding any actions impacting their ability to feed and fuel the world that the Secretary of HHS might have a role in.

Other meetings: I met with David Malpass, former President of the World Bank Group; Rosemary Banks, New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United States; Jens Stoltenberg, former Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Mike Fitts, President of Tulane University; Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs at Google; Andrei Muraru, Romania’s Ambassador to the United States; General Timothy Haugh, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency; Roberta Cordano, President of Gallaudet University; Bernard Hurwitz with the Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf; and Jason Matheny, President and CEO of RAND.

I also attended our Senate Bible Study and Senate Prayer Breakfast, where Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York was our speaker.

Hearings: While none of my committees had any full hearings last week, we did have business meetings to pass President Trump’s nominees through committee. On Monday, we met in the Intelligence Committee to vote on John Ratcliffe, nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, and in the Senate Armed Services Committee on Pete Hegseth, nominee to lead the Department of Defense. They have both now been confirmed by the full Senate. We also met in the Banking Committee to vote on Scott Turner, nominee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Turner has not yet come up for a full vote in the Senate. I voted YES on all of these nominees.

Classified briefings: I attended a classified briefing on the National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center.

Votes taken: 11 – as I mentioned, one of these was on Marco Rubio’s nomination for Secretary of State. We also voted to pass the Laken Riley Act that I mentioned last week, which also passed the House last week and now heads to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law. We also voted to confirm John Ratcliffe as the next director of the CIA, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security.

Subcommittee assignments: I received word on my subcommittee assignments for the 119th Congress. I will be serving as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, where I’ve held the top Republican position since the subcommittee was created in 2017. I will also chair the Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investments.

My staff in South Dakota visited: Spearfish. 

Steps taken: 46,698 steps or 23.44 miles.

Video of the week: I joined Fox Business to discuss President Trump’s agenda: