Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight
The scene outside Thursday’s Watertown Rotary luncheon turned raucous in the presence of South Dakota’s senior U.S. senator.
Not long after the event, staffers urged Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune into a black sedan as protesters outside Watertown’s Elks Lodge yelled “do your job.”
Before he left, though, Thune said he didn’t take issue with the people doing the yelling.
“We hear in our office on a fairly regular basis from people across the state on sort of all sides of the issues. Clearly these protesters are very anti-Trump policy, and so they have every right to make their voices heard,” Thune said. “We welcome that.”
The protesters want Thune to oppose several of the president’s efforts, and for him to hold public town halls.
The noon event where Thune took questions was open to Rotary Club members and media, not the general public. Several protesters said they’d reached out to Thune’s office through phone or email in recent months without a response.
“Our senator doesn’t have the guts to stand up to what Trump is doing,” said Kay Solberg, an organizer who said she plans to hold another protest in Watertown this weekend.
It was the second gathering of displeased citizens to greet Thune in as many days. More than 100 people protested outside a Thune event in Rapid City Wednesday.
Thune said he doesn’t see how a public town hall “accomplishes anything that we don’t accomplish on a daily basis.” He maintains that he’s “probably one of the most accessible politicians in South Dakota.”
That’s why Thune was behind schedule on Thursday, his staff said. He’d taken two too many questions from Watertown Rotarians, held a second press conference that wasn’t scheduled, and stopped to shake hands again and again with Watertown residents who had lingering questions and concerns.
Wednesday marked Thune’s third event in the state this week during Congress’ April recess, following the Pennington County Republican Women’s meeting in Rapid City and an appearance at Northern State University in Aberdeen on Tuesday. He’s also spent hours visiting with the public at the state basketball tournament in Aberdeen in March, he said.
“If people have questions, we’re available on a regular basis,” Thune said.
Thune answered several questions during the Rotary meeting, addressing the uncertainty regarding foreign trade, immigration and cuts to entitlement programs.
Thune encourages patience on tariffs
Thune has long been a critic of tariffs and supportive of free trade deals, but said South Dakotans should offer grace to Trump and his shifting tariff policy “to see what kind of deals he can strike.”
At a town hall earlier this week, Augustana Economics Professor Reynold Nesiba said tariffs risk relationships with other countries. U.S. beef exports to China were halted, the former Democratic state lawmaker said, allowing Australia to fill the gap. The same can happen with China’s soybean imports, Nesiba said, shifting from the United States to Brazil.
Trump’s intention, Thune said Wednesday, is to negotiate better trade deals and create a “more level playing field,” especially regarding China’s trade practices. He said he’s heard support from agricultural producers in the state on the plan.
America should explore partnerships with other countries in the meantime, Thune said. He supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership during the Obama administration, which would have opened up markets in countries like Japan and South Korea.
“We have a lot of national security interests in the region, and they’re allies of ours and we can use that to isolate China,” Thune said. “What you don’t want is these countries running into China’s orbit.”
If Trump’s trade policies are “used in a way that gets a trilateral deal in place, for example with Japan and South Korea, that would be a win.”
Medicaid’s role in budget reconciliation
Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to pass a budget reconciliation bill by Memorial Day is “certainly aspirational,” Thune said.
Since Republicans control the House and Senate, they can unlock the reconciliation process to fast-track major spending legislation and bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster role with a simple majority.
Thune expects to iron out differences between budget resolutions from the House and Senate and send the finished product to Trump’s desk “hopefully by the middle of summer to create some economic certainty.”
Congress needs to “get it done right,” Thune said.
“Whatever amount of time that takes, we’re going to do the right thing,” he said.
Republicans hope to leverage the process to extend and expand expiring tax cuts, increase border security and defense spending and cut federal spending throughout the budget.
Medicaid is on the chopping block, Thune said. The House budget envisions a Medicaid cut of $880 million over a 10 year period, although the House Energy and Commerce Committee would have to hammer out how to save the money.
Medicaid is a federal-state health insurance program for people with low income. Medicaid spending is projected to cost $7.4 trillion over the next decade.
Thune proposed Medicaid work requirements rather than cutting the program as a way to “achieve a significant level of savings that would strengthen the program and not harm people who are beneficiaries.”
The change would generate more than $100 billion in savings over a decade, he said.
South Dakota voters approved a constitutional amendment during the 2024 general election to allow the state to implement Medicaid work requirements if the federal government allows them.
Thune says he’s ‘not worried’ about legal status of immigrants
Rotarian Don Goldhorn said he appreciated Thune’s appearance, but said some responses left him disgruntled.
Goldhorn and his wife sponsored a work visa for a Ukrainian family, he said, helping them adjust to life in the United States during Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine. The two-year work visa will end in September, and Goldman is concerned the family won’t receive an extension and be forced to return to their besieged home country.
“If they came here legally into this country,” Thune said, “and they’re law-abiding citizens here, I’m not worried.”
Other Rotarians received similar responses from Thune about the detention of Pro-Palestine protesters because of allegedly antisemitic behavior.
“I’m not satisfied,” Goldhorn told South Dakota Searchlight, “and it’s nothing personal against Sen. Thune. I went to get some specific answers, and I didn’t feel like there were specific answers.”
Driving past protesters to enter the building before the luncheon began, though, Goldhorn wondered if a town hall would accomplish what the protesters might hope it would.
Thune could speak directly to all constituents, he said, and they could raise their concerns or dissatisfaction to him. But the Rotarian worries that larger, more public town halls could turn from peaceful to confrontational.