‘She Needs to Take a Seat’: Axios Reports On Democratic Lawmakers’ Growing Fury At Nancy Pelosi
House Democrats called on Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to cease commenting on the state of her party in anonymous statements to Axios for a report published Friday afternoon.
Axios granted both lawmakers anonymity and noted that the former House speaker still has the ability to instill “fear” among House Democrats.
According to the report, Pelosi’s presence in the media since last week’s election has peeved many of her peers. Many reportedly believe House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) should be the voice for Democrats as the party forges ahead as an opposition entity in the coming years.
“She needs to take a seat,” one person described as a “senior Democratic lawmaker” told the outlet.
The lawmaker added of Pelosi’s media appearances after Republicans secured the White House and both chambers of Congress, “Making scattershot comments is not just unhelpful, it’s damaging.”
Meanwhile, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus told Axios, “Hakeem has been tremendously graceful and respectful of her, but I don’t think she is respectful of him.”
Axios’s Hans Nichols reported:
The mounting frustration with Pelosi exists in the private conversations among House Democrats in various corners of the caucus. The trouble started when Pelosi agreed to an interview with The New York Times in which she suggested Biden should have dropped out of the race sooner.
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Many of Pelosi’s Democratic colleagues privately cheered when she asserted her will over the party this summer by helping push Biden out of the campaign. The country’s first woman speaker didn’t appear to care that Biden’s feelings were hurt. “We just have to win the election,” she said.
Nichols concluded numerous Democrats were “clearly frustrated” that Pelosi, 84, has declined to fade “into the sunset” since Jeffries became the ranking House Democrat.
Pelosi told The New York Times last week in a wide-ranging interview that President Joe Biden decided to drop his reelection bid on his own and without pressure from her.