DNC powerhouse fundraiser announces exit from Democratic Party following attacks: 'It's like leaving a cult'
Prominent Democratic National Committee (DNC) powerhouse fundraiser Lindy Li announced that she is leaving the Democratic Party, which she referred to as a "cult," after facing an onslaught of internal attacks for criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris last week.
Li, a Democrat strategist, served as both a surrogate for Harris and a member of the DNC’s national fundraising committee, where she raised "tens of millions of dollars" on behalf of Democratic candidates. She also frequently appeared on the air to stump for Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.
Li became the target of the left's attacks earlier this month when she expressed support for President-elect Donald Trump’s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth. But it was the party's vitriolic response to a subsequent appearance on Fox News that pushed her rightward, she said on "Piers Morgan Uncensored."
"This past week has been harrowing for me," Li told Piers Morgan in Wednesday's episode. "This Saturday, I went on ‘Fox & Friends’ and I said ‘Democrats have a stench of loser hanging over them.’ As soon as I said that, there were boycott campaigns against me. Unblock, unfollow campaigns."
Li told "Fox & Friends" that she felt Harris was "indulging in delusions" of making a political comeback amid party buzz of the vice president staging a 2026 gubernatorial or 2028 presidential run and that the Democratic Party was plagued by the "stench of loser" after November's defeat.
The comment cost her forty thousand followers in four days and prompted an onslaught of slanderous attacks from Democrats, the same people she spent her whole career defending, she told Morgan.
"People have called me a whore, the ‘C-word.’ They asked for me to be deported…," she revealed.
Li said she was also accused of working as a "communist spy." The accusation was particularly offensive to her, she said, considering her family history.
"They're calling me a spy for the regime that killed my great-grandfather and these are the people who call themselves the social justice warriors," she told Morgan. "They're going headfirst into racism anytime someone dares to disagree with them. I want to be a part of the team that says men are men and women are women and men shouldn't play in women's sports."
The reaction was eye-opening for her, she said, telling Morgan that she feels like the party who claims to occupy the moral high ground has been unmasked.
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"All these so-called Democrats, the party of inclusion, the party of diversity, masks off. And it's even worse because they pretend to occupy the moral high ground," she said. "They pretend to be so loving and caring and embracing of diversity but all of a sudden, when I dare to utter any criticisms of the goddess Kamala Harris, I get ostracized. Me, after having raised tens of millions of dollars for the party."
She continued, "My donors are pissed…it's my responsibility to ask what the hell happened with their money…these are legitimate questions, but no, in the cult, you can't ask questions. And leaving the Democratic Party or even questioning the Democratic Party is like leaving a cult. It's terrifying. I don't want to be a part of this craziness anymore. They're accelerating my rightward shift."
Li said Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves for driving her and other prominent fundraisers out.
"They're shrinking their tent. They're basically pushing me to bring my tens of millions of dollars that I've raised and can continue to raise to a different team that treats me better, that treats me with common decency.'
Four days earlier, Li told NewsNation's "Morning in America" that she was still weighing her options about what a future role might look like for her.
"I think I'm too big to fully exile from the party," Li said of her contributions to the DNC at the time, seemingly signifying a change of heart in the short time between both comments were made. "The leadership knows that."
"People on Trump's team have already reached out to me to see if I'd be willing to switch," Li added. "So, I'm not an orphan, you know? And I know people are actively trying to recruit me."
Li isn't the first Democratic fundraiser to exit the party. In September, an ex-Obama fundraiser who helped raise millions in donations for his campaign announced that she was "divorcing" the Democratic Party and planned to vote for Trump in the November election.