REED: Mr. President, just a few minutes ago, my Republican colleagues voted down the National Security and Border Act.

In doing so, they essentially said no to supporting Israel, no to supporting Ukraine, no to supporting Taiwan, no to humanitarian assistance, which is absolutely critical, no to rebuilding our defense industrial base, no to border security funding, and no to combating fentanyl.

These items are not the partisan demands of any one party; they are bipartisan priorities and necessities. They are the fulfillment of our commitments to our allies and to our national security. I believe the majority of our Republican colleagues do believe this, but some may see this as leverage--as one of my colleagues put it in a discussion, leverage for extreme immigration legislation that they don't at the moment have the votes to pass.

In delaying the much needed assistance that I indicated, my Republican colleagues are indirectly, directly, or however you want to put it, giving too many opportunities or at least ideas to people like Putin and Chinese communists and others who are engaged in trying to undermine democracy throughout the world.

Speaking for myself, I hope that what we can do is begin a serious debate now--not on the one issue that I listed but on all those issues--and come to a serious, principled compromise so that we can move forward together. It seems that my colleagues on the other side simply want us to accept their version of immigration reform, and then everything else will be OK.

It is not that at all.

In fact, one of the aspects of the legislation that was just voted down was a significant infusion of resources into the border area--1,300 additional Border Patrol agents, 1,000 law enforcement personnel and investigative capabilities to prevent cartels from moving fentanyl into the country, 1,600 additional asylum officers, funding to conduct robust child labor investigations and enforcement to protect vulnerable migrant children entering the United States through the southern border, and the bipartisan FEND Off Fentanyl Act, led by our colleague, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

My colleagues just voted against a series of important ways to fix our problems at the border. We need them desperately, and we could have gotten them if we had moved forward procedurally. I have been here for a couple of years, and I have seen several occasions where we have been together on a bipartisan basis.

I know in 2013, led by Senator McCain and others, we passed comprehensive immigration reform, only to see it set aside by the Republican House of Representatives at the time. So we, I think, have to do much more, and we can, but it will be on a bipartisan, cooperative basis. We have to do much more to help not just Israel--it is critical--but also Ukraine.

It has been a long time since we have had their funding request--August of this year. They made a serious request for additional resources, anticipating the attrition they would suffer over the intervening months, long before the October 7 tragedy.

It has been more than 2 months since President Zelenskyy was here in person asking us all personally for the help he needed to lead his country forward. It was at that time that Senator McConnell correctly and sincerely indicated, in his words, ``American support for Ukraine is not charity. It is in our own direct interests, not least because degrading Russia helps to deter China.''

But the foot-dragging has continued since then. Ukraine cannot wait. The OMB Director wrote earlier this week: "[W]ithout congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to produce more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks. There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money--and nearly out of time."

So without our help, the Ukrainian people will be in a very desperate situation. We need to help them. We need to help our allies in Israel. We need to help those in Taiwan, and we need to help the innocent victims of conflict throughout the world. So this one-shot deal doesn't cut it.

We have to come together, work together, and deliver assistance to Ukraine, to Israel, to Taiwan, humanitarian aid, and aid for our borders. With that, I will yield to Senator Klobuchar.