On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said that there were more than eight Democrats in the Senate who wanted to join with Senate Republicans and vote to end the government shutdown and would have possibly stepped up if one of the eight Democrats who ultimately voted that way hadn’t done so.

Whitehouse defended Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) by saying that the Senate isn’t the same as the House because members of the Senate have more independence and because a leadership switch in the middle of a fight is a bad strategy.

He added that Schumer “also had a bigger number of senators to deal with than eight. He had the three you mentioned who had never voted to stop the continuing resolution. He had the five who voted and changed

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