Scoop: House Dems sick of Pelosi

• "She needs to take a seat," said one senior Democratic lawmaker.
• "Making scattershot comments is not just unhelpful, it's damaging," said the lawmaker.

"Hakeem has been tremendously graceful and respectful of her, but I don't think she is being respectful of him," said a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

• Both lawmakers insisted on anonymity.
• Pelosi still instills fear in the members she led for two decades.

Zoom in: 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.
• Had that happened, "there may have been other candidates in the race," she said.
• Her comments ignited another round of finger-pointing and blame-shifting between the Biden and Harris camps.

The intrigue: The NYT wrote up their story on Friday but didn't post the full interview until Saturday.

• The transcript had more caveats and compliments than the initial article indicated, but it didn't really matter. Pelosi had started a fire.

🥊 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.

Between the lines: Jeffries' allies, including Pelosi, note Democrats picked up three seats in his native New York.

• On Pelosi's home turf of California, Democrats hoped to knock off five Republicans. So far, they have only taken out one.

• "He did a masterful job in New York in this election," she said in her controversial NYT interview,
• "Speaker Pelosi is immensely proud of Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his masterful stewardship of the House Democratic Caucus," a Pelosi spokesperson told us.
• "We all should praise the excellent progress made by House Democrats under his leadership."

Zoom out: Recriminations are flying over Democrats failing to take the House, with some members airing their grievances in a caucus meeting this week.

• Jeffries told members that "the buck stops with me."

The bottom line: Some Democrats are clearly frustrated Pelosi isn't fading into the sunset like she promised when she lost the gavel two years ago.

• "My advice to my fellow Democrats is simple: Follow the leader. Hakeem Jeffries has done a great job," Pelosi said in 2023.
• "I understand that this is a difficult transition for her, not being the leader, but she is not," the member of the Congressional Black Caucus told us.
• "She needs to understand what her new role is."