I am not going to back off the sequestration,” Reid said in the interview. “That’s the law we passed. We did it because it wouldn’t make things easy for us. It made it so we would have to do something. And if we didn’t, these cuts would kick in.”

It’s almost certain Reid has the 40 votes needed to block GOP attempts to undo the sequester, which will hit the Pentagon with $110 billion in cuts on Jan. 1. Last week, nearly 60 senators voted to reject Rep. Paul Ryan’s House-passed budget, which would postpone any cuts to defense spending.