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Democratic National Committee finance member Lindy Li criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful bid for the White House, calling her defeat to President-elect Donald Trump a “$1 billion disaster.”
“This is just an epic disaster, a $1 billion disaster,” Li, a member of the DNC National Finance Committee, said during her Saturday morning appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend.
She continued, “They’re $20 million or $18 million in debt. It’s incredible, and I raised millions of that. I have friends I need to be accountable to and explain what happened because I told them it was a margin-of-error race.”
Li, who was both a campaign surrogate and a donor, argued that Biden’s quick endorsement of Harris after he dropped his reelection campaign hurt the Democrats. She suggested that this decision contributed to the party’s struggles in the election.
Further, Li made a similar point, arguing that if Democrats truly viewed Trump as a threat to democracy and the nation, they would have allowed for an open process to choose a successor, rather than simply “coronating somebody.” She stated that President Biden’s quick endorsement of Harris shut down that possibility.
“I honestly think President Biden endorsing her just 30 minutes after he dropped out was a big ‘F you’ to the party,” Li said. “If you don’t want me, here’s somebody you probably won’t like, deal with it.”
The strategist further added that Harris’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, “promised all of us that Harris would win.”
“She even put videos out saying Harris would win,” Li said on Saturday. “I believed her, my donors believed her, and so they wrote massive checks. I just feel like a lot of us were misled.”
Meanwhile, former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that if President Joe Biden had ended his reelection bid earlier, the Democratic Party could have held a more competitive nominating process to select a replacement.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview published by the New York Times on Friday. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, there would be an open primary.”
Biden ended his reelection bid in July and quickly endorsed Harris after a lackluster debate performance against Trump, 78, raised concerns about his ability to defeat the former president or serve a full second term.