Senator Sheldon Whitehouse defends affiliation with elite private club

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is defending his affiliation with an elite private club in Newport, Rhode Island, that a local news site, GoLocal Providence, characterizes as "all-white."

The site interviewed the Democratic lawmaker Friday and asked if Bailey's Beach Club had admitted any minorities since GoLocal first reported on the matter in 2017. He responded, "I think the people who are running the place are still working on that, and I'm sorry it hasn't happened yet."  But on Monday, Whitehouse told Capitol Hill reporters, "Yeah, I think they got the facts wrong" when asked to respond to the questions raised by GoLocal about the racial makeup of the club.