Nine months ago, Lindi Li, a member of Kamala’ Harris’ National Finance Committee, was the darling of the liberal cable TV news set. One day she was appearing on CNN, another on MSNBC. The 34-year old Asian-American investment banker, one of Harri’s top fundraisers, was a supremely articulate defender of the Harris candidacy for president – one of the best, in fact. Not only was she raising gobs of money – a reported $2 million in the space of just two weeks – she was also rallying her fellow Asian-Americans to back Harris, who boasts her own South Asian roots.

But within a day of the election, in which Harris not only lost to Trump, but saw a sharp decline in the Asian-American vote – to a nadir not seen in decades – Li was back on cable television. Only this time it wasn’t CNN, it was Fox News, and her insider view of what went wrong – and who was to blame – wasn’t pretty.

In the months since, she has gone from liberal darling to virtual pariah, as her attacks on Joe Biden, Harris and the entire Democratic party establishment have escalated. And despite being canceled off of CNN and MSNBC, her media appearances – on Fox and on multiple podcasts with Dr. Phil, Piers Morgan, Dave Rubin and others – have mushroomed. She now has her own show, “Her Take,” where she offers up bon mots of wisdom on national politics, the declining fortunes of the Democrats and her own newfound enthusiasm for Trump. This is a minority woman on the move, a virtual tornado that is blowing the doors off the Democratic party establishment, threatening to leave the entire party in ruins.

Democrats, while clearly aghast, appear divided over how to respond, and many don’t dare, for fear of what she might say next. Some like former DNC chair Roland Martin, have gone into attack mode, calling her a “liar” for supporting Harris to begin with, and accusing her of “kissing MAGA’s ass.” Others, speaking off the record through journalists, have suggested that she’s an opportunist whose “influence” inside the party has been overstated. Writing in Bulwark last January, after Li first started appearing on air, journalist Kyle Tharp reported that Li was always appearing at major political events, and inserting herself into the spotlight, mainly just to draw attention to herself. In one notorious incident – never independently confirmed – Li was accused of trying to remove a woman in a wheelchair in the front row so that she could position herself in the woman’s place.

Li did often pose for photos with Biden, Harris and other party potentates, but, of course, so did many others. Still, to some, her constant mugging for the camera was sheer self-promotion. Tara Palmeri, in a live interview with Li on her own podcast, also wondered whether Li had spoken up about Biden’s deteriorating health condition, and questioned her account of meeting with the DNC chair to urge that Biuden step aside. She also grilled Li about her motives for attacking other Democrats, and wondered why she waited until Harris lost to spill the beans publicly about the failures of the campaign.

Li’s matter-of-fact response: “I was a loyal foot-soldier. We were all desperately hoping that Harris could pull it off, despite our growing doubts,” which she insists she shared with party poo-bahs, who reassured her, she says, that “all was well.”  I found Li’s self-accounting quite believable, in fact. Why put the onus on a relatively junior player – without high-level insider power – to spill the beans, when so many above her were crassly stonewalling and deflecting?

Still, it’s not exactly clear what Li’s motive might be for going so very public – and unlike so many others who are speaking anonymously, all but cutting her ties to the Democratic establishment – and indeed, quite possibly, to the party. Her depiction of the Biden administration and Biden’s own failings are stark and brutal – and indeed, refreshing. “We didn’t have a president. We had a council of three unelected people who were actually running the country – Anita Dunn [a long-time Obama loyalist], Steve Richetti and Mike Donilon [two long-time Biden aides].  I doubt even 1% of the country, if that, has even heard of them,” she told conservative podcaster Dave Rubin recently.

Her depiction of Harris is even less flattering. “Kamala Harris has always been extremely kind to me, so I really wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. In person, she doesn’t come off like a complete idiot, but somehow when she talks on stage, her brain just completely melts,” Li says, candidly. “In the end, I just realized that this is not someone who can lead the most powerful nation on the face of the earth.”

One of her more interesting revelations concerns how Biden’s demise actually occurred. Neither Obama nor Nancy Pelosi nor even Chuck Schumer, she suggests, was intimately involved in forcing Biden to step aside, though none wanted Harris to succeed him, she says. It was Rep. James Clymer, the party’s #3, and its top African-American power-broker, the same man who helped foist Biden on the party back in 2020, who insisted that Harris become the candidate, she insists.  She describes how Clymer was always the man behind the scenes at nearly every fundraiser she co-hosted, quietly twisting arms and cajoling the party in his direction and constantly pressuring Biden on key policy decisions, most notably, the nomination of the first Black woman to the US Supreme Court.

“Biden owed Clymer” she declares flatly. “He never would have won the presidency without him.”

Listening to Li, one detects a real mix of motives in her decision to turn party whistleblower – and to some, party turncoat, and to excoriate her former party colleagues with such verve. Partly, it’s a mea culpa for having stood by Biden and Harris for so long, and for having let down party donors, not all of them big-shots, whom she convinced to donate money to a failed campaign. She says she feels guilty for having convinced the smaller donors, those who contributed as little as ten or fifteen dollars, thinking the future of the world was at stake, and that Harris was “the one.” It’s also clear that Li wants to rehabilitate herself and deflect the back-biting from fellow Democrats that seem intent on ruining her. And she wants to get out in front of other newfound party penitents – and journalists like Jake Tapper – that want to “set the record straight” about what went on in the back rooms of the party during the final year of the Biden-Harris regime – having conspired in the media cover-up all along.

Is she ambitious? No doubt. And she’s ready to roll the dice to see where her newfound fame – and notoriety – might lead. Can you really blame her?

In the weeks ahead, some Democrats will likely suggest that Li was a wolf in sheep’s clothing all along – a dyed-in-the-wool right-wing Democrat with no deep allegiance to the party – a claim she denies, of course. But make no mistake: Li’s no friend of progressives: “I’ve been fighting the left flank for years,” she admits, noting that there is animosity between her and AOC dating back five years when Li criticized some of Bernie Sanders’ economic proposals and AOC “crucified me on Twitter.“ She feels that the party has mistakenly identified itself with “woke,” harming its standing with key voter constituencies, including her own  ”It shook me” that the Harris campaign didn’t respond to Trump’s notorious transgender-bashing ads that many observers, including Li, feel damaged her candidacy severely. “I’m against these policies. I’ve always been against them” she insists.

Still, there’s a reason Li hasn’t drawn much fire openly from Democratic party poo-bahs. Many looking to carve out a “centrist” alternative in 2028 must sense that she may still be useful – both as a fundraiser and strategist. Judging from her past appearances on MSNBC and CNN, she’s an extremely articulate and effective spokesperson for Democratic policies (the ones she still supports, at least). And wooing back disaffected Asian-Americans, who are the nation’s fast-growing ethnic group and a key swing vote in states like Georgia and Nevada, is a top Democratic priority in 2028. Li, at 34, clearly isn’t done yet, despite the efforts of one-time party hacks like Martin to simply brand her a “traitor.”

For now, despite her flirtation with Trump World, Li appears to have allied herself more or less informally with PA governor Josh Shapiro, whom some in the party – including many donors, and possibly Li – had hoped would be the candidate last year instead of Harris – or at least, serve as her VP.  Li is a PA resident who first met Shapiro when she launched her unsuccessful bid for Congress in the Keystone State back in 2015, and she clearly admires him. Shapiro even named her a “Commissioner of the Commonwealth,” solidifying their alliance.  For some, Shapiro is a potential bridge between the party’s warring factions, progressive on most economic issues, moderate on the culture war, but conservative on defense, especially Israel.  If Li plans to support Shapiro – whom she describes sympathetically as a “friend” and mentor –– she could prove to be a most formidable asset in the most vital swing state in the nation.

Or Li may just decide to go it alone, and like RFK, Jr., let the two parties fight over her, possibly dangling a top post in a future administration to seduce her. Her new political website offers her up as a freelance political consultant and guru, sounding off on the current scene and offering to answer specific questions by text or email – for a fee. She also claims to have a book in the works – titled, rather devilishly “Unburdened” — in which she promises to “name more names.”  Dismissing her outright, as Martin and others are wont to do, probably won’t do much good. Opportunist or not, she has managed to project herself sympathetically as a young woman of genuine talent and savvy caught up in the dishonest schemes of decrepit party elites over which she had no control. Yes, she defended Biden and even Harris against critics to the very end, as any loyal party surrogate would do. And she turned on a dime within days of the defeat – suddenly, it seems, like Saul on the road to Damascus, an overnight convert blinded by the inescapable truth.  You may not believe her — but in the age of DEI, it won’t be that easy to “cancel” her.

To me, Li’s a Godsend of sorts, having ripped the mask off of the Democratic Party elites, demanding full transparency and accountability – and public punishment – for having gaslighted the masses, in the process, handing the White House back to Trump. She may be a climber in search of redemption – with the donor class, above all, whose millions she siphoned – but she’s not the “enemy” – not yet at least. Thanks to her, the tide of revelations about who knew what and when – and who failed to act with courage and dignity – will continue to stream forward, making the predicament of the party’s dying Old Guard – living in their class-bound bubble of entitlement and autocracy, more dire than ever. Who knows, upon this ugly wreckage, we may even get to fashion the party we truly want – and the whole country truly needs.

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