AOC, Cruz agree on trading oversight but she demands resignation because he almost had her ‘murdered’
AOC wants to investigate financial app Robinhood restricting access to trading
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ted Cruz had a moment of agreement over the trading app Robinhood freezing trades this morning. But it didn’t last long as AOC said she appreciated the support but still wanted the conservative lawmaker to resign.
Reddit users have encouraged people to buy into struggling companies after hedge funds shorted their stocks, betting the stock would fall, and they’d profit. Small investors then bought up shares, inflating the stock price of GameStop and other companies, increasing their margins and resulting in a loss for the hedge funds.
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In response, the online trading platform Robinhood put restrictions on such stocks such as GameStop and AMC on Thursday.
“In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AAL, $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $CTRM, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD, $NOK, $SNDL, $TR, and $TRVG. We also raised margin requirements for certain securities,” Robinhood announced in a blog post.
A class-action lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York on Thursday by a user who claimed that Robinhood was now “manipulating” the open market, The Hill reported.
Robinhood was accused of “purposefully, willfully, and knowingly removing the stock ‘GME’ [GameStop] from its trading platform in the midst of an unprecedented stock rise thereby deprived retail investors of the ability to invest in the open-market and manipulating the open-market,” in the suit.
AOC also took exception to Robinhood placing their thumb on the marketplace.
“This is unacceptable. We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit,” the congresswoman tweeted.
“As a member of the Financial Services Cmte, I’d support a hearing if necessary.”
AOC continued that there needed to be inquiries into the “freezes” being put into place by Robinhood.
“This is a serious matter. Committee investigators should examine any retail services freezing stock purchases in the course of potential investigations – especially those allowing sales, but freezing purchases,” she tweeted.
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To the surprise of many, Cruz agreed with Ocasio-Cortez, with whom he has been involved in many Twitter spats. As theGrio reported earlier this month, AOC demanded that Cruz resign from his office after the U.S. Capitol was breached on Jan. 6. She claimed that his “craven, self-serving actions contributed to the deaths of four people yesterday. And how you fundraised off this riot,” because he wanted to contest the Electoral College certification of President Joe Biden.
Despite the previous barb, Cruz declared “Fully agree” in a retweet of the progressive lawmaker.
AOC responded that while she was happy to find common ground with her conservative counterpart, she still wanted him to resign.
“I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out,” she tweeted.
“Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.”
Cruz dismissed her remarks as “partisan anger.”
Ocasio-Cortez responded, saying that Cruz should be held accountable for his actions that led to the Capitol breach.
AOC has promised to go live on Twitch later this evening to discuss what is taking place on Wall Street.
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