As the media’s gaze fixes on the meltdown of President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s relationship, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Newsmax that the Senate is focused on working through the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," including blocking the sale of parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that will be needed for the Golden Dome missile defense system.
When asked on "Wake Up America" if he and his colleagues had identified changes to be made to the House version of the massive budget reconciliation bill, Rounds said they had already cleared the first hurdle.
"We've worked through one of them, I believe, and that is the House had sent over a version that was kind of a sidebar issue with regard to the sale of the electromagnetic spectrum, which was really being used by the Department of Defense and the intelligence community," Rounds said Friday.
"If the Commerce Committee would have been allowed to have sold off some of that, it would have really impacted our ability to provide adequate radars and so forth to the Department of Defense," he continued. "But, just as importantly, for the Golden Dome concept, which is what we're really working on to protect the United States against threats of incoming missiles and so forth, that would require this part of the spectrum for DOD use, and we had to make sure we had it protected.
"I think we've got it put together appropriately so that we can protect that part of the spectrum," he added. "We're moving forward, but we want to get it done."
Trump announced plans late last month to build the Golden Dome missile defense system — a multilayered $175 billion system that will put U.S. weapons in space for the first time.
The president said he expects the system to be fully operational by the time he leaves office and touted its capability of intercepting missiles "even if they are launched from space."
The South Dakota senator also commented on the provision in the rescission bill currently in the House that would cut funding for NPR, expressing concern about the potential impact for Native American and rural areas of his state.
"That was the concern that I expressed, and we're looking at it right now," Rounds said. "I've got nine tribes in South Dakota. They're very rural and their only way, really, of communicating — emergencies, weather events and so forth — is on that local radio station and a significant part of that funding comes through NPR. We want to make sure we protect that. Those folks live in some of the poorest areas in the United States."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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