Senators questioning the delay on agriculture pick

Dakota and Jon Tester of Montana both noted that the president didn’t specifically mention rural America in his hourlong speech. Both senators are up for re-election in 2018.

“There wasn’t a mention of rural America, a farm bill, or agriculture workers, and t hese should be focuses for any leader of our country,” Heitkamp said, noting that President Barack Obama often omitted f arm country i n his speeches to Congress as well.

“You wonder why people in rural America feel left out and feel disenf ranchised? Because they never hear anything about them,” she said.

Tester said lawmakers need to keep rural issues “front and center” for the new president, who is from New York City.

“The tendency is to go where you know, and I’m not sure he knows rural America very well, so it’s just an opportunity to remind him that you’ve got to pay attention,” Tester said.

Some farm- state Republicans pushed back on the idea that Trump is not engaged.

“He talked about rolling back regulations, and he talked about things that really matter in rural America,” South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said of Trump’s speech.

While Trump began picking department heads in November, he waited until Jan. 18, two days before his inauguration, to choose an agriculture secretary. At the time, farm-state lawmakers and farm groups said they worried that the new pick would be at a disadvantage getting started.

In the weeks since he was chosen, Perdue has held several meetings with senators on Capitol Hill. Farm-state senators have mostly praised his nomination, including Democrat Heitkamp, who said she would support him.

Perdue, 70, is a farmer’s son who would be the first Southerner in the post in more than two decades. He built businesses in grain trading and trucking before becoming the first Republican governor of Georgia since Reconstruction. After his governorship, he co- founded a company