Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has faced a wave of criticism for failing to control his caucus after a group of Senate Democrats defected to join Republicans and back a deal to reopen the government. But, according to Lawrence O’Donnell, while it may be easy to criticize the New York Democrat, another lawmaker may earn the title of the biggest loser in the shutdown deal: House Majority Leader Mike Johnson.

On Monday’s “The Last Word,” O’Donnell acknowledged that the Democratic base had reasons to be frustrated over the way Senate leadership handled the vote, even if keeping one’s party in line is a difficult job, especially during a shutdown.

“Who in the United States Senate right now could have persuaded the senators from Nevada to worry less about the disruption in air traffic to Las Vegas?” O’Donnell asked, adding that “every Democratic member of the Senate” had “a chance to persuade” their colleagues against joining the compromise.

“It might be easy to call for his resignation, but it is not easy to say who — with a name — could do a better job,” O’Donnell said of Schumer.

The Senate bill now heads to the House, where Johnson must rally his razor-thin majority to back the deal, a task that proved difficult the first time around.

“Johnson’s bill that he passed through the House of Representatives by five votes is not going to be signed into law,” O’Donnell explained. “It’s going to be ripped up. Mike Johnson has to bring all his Republican House members back and all of them, all of them, have to change their positions to agree with just five Senate Democrats who changed their positions.”

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But funding the government won’t be Johnson’s only issue, O’Donnell noted. When the House returns, the speaker must swear in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, whose arrival means eventually bringing to the floor a bill calling for the release of government files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

“That is why Mike Johnson closed down the House of Representatives and gave every Republican in the House a paid vacation for the last seven weeks: fear, abject fear, of the Epstein files,” O’Donnell said.

The MSNBC host described the looming vote as the one Johnson “fears more than any vote ever cast during his speakership.”

You can watch O’Donnell’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.