National Committee of Asian American Republicans back Democrat Joe Biden

Cliff Li, executive director of a Republican group that endorsed Democrat Joe Biden.

At last, some Republicans who put country over party. After much deep reflection, the National Committee of Asian American Republicans has officially endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

In an exclusive interview by Cat Sandoval for Newsy, the committee's executive director Cliff Li announced the group's decision to support Biden, the Democrats' nominee for President instead of the Republican incumbent.

The National Committee of Asian American Republicans, which purports to have 50,000 members with chapters mainly on the East Seaboard, said in their endorsement statement:

"Making America great again starts from all sides coming together, to heal a divided nation. We don't need a smart-pants president who knows everything including the best medicine curing COVID-19, who empowers only his base to run over political oppositions. We need a president with empathy, integrity, and broadness capable of bringing all sides to the table to find the common ground, work together overcoming serious challenges ahead. America first is for all Americans, not just Americans on one side. As former Governor John Kasich pointed out recently, America is at the cross road. We might disagree with each other on a policy, but we can all agree a divided America will decline and sink hurting us all. Who should we give our votes now?"

"We start to feel the country is further divided. And we don't feel safe," says Li, who served on the Asian Pacific American advisory committee for the 2016 Trump-Pence campaign. He says the country's division is the primary reason for the Biden endorsement. 

Li came to the U.S. from China in 1990 after witnessing the events of Tiananmen Square when Chinese soldiers with tanks squashed a protest for democracy.

He explains: "We saw this kind of struggle back then, the revolution, the political leader getting this group of people against another. We saw those things. So when we see this happening, ... we say, 'Is this right?' This is America. We couldn't imagine America could come to the point where it’s America against America."

Out of  22 million Asian Americans in the U.S., about half of them are eligible to vote, according to API Vote. Although the majority of Asian Americans tend to vote with the Democrats, a quarter of them are Republicans.