Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Monday renewed her name for a ban on lawmakers buying and selling particular person shares after a disclosure submitting confirmed that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) purchased shares in a lot of firms simply earlier than President Donald Trump introduced a pause on tariffs.
“We noticed Marjorie Taylor Greene purchase that dip,” Ocasio-Cortez mentioned at a rally in Idaho with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “I acquired one query for her: How a lot did you make? How a lot did you make off of individuals’s despair? How a lot did you make off that panic? How a lot did you make off of that struggling?”
She slammed lawmakers for utilizing their entry to “delicate info” to make trades ― and mentioned Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs have been a part of that scheme.
“I hope we see now that it was all about manipulating the markets in order that he might quietly enrich his pals who purchased the dip earlier than reversing all of it within the morning,” she mentioned.
The disclosure this week revealed that Greene purchased between about $21,000 and $315,000 in shares on April 8 and 9, the day earlier than and the day of Trump’s tariff pause announcement, the New York Instances famous.
That announcement brought on the market to soar.
Ocasio-Cortez mentioned Democrats and Republicans alike ought to be united in opposing the observe in all circumstances.
“Members of Congress holding and buying and selling particular person inventory is incorrect,” she mentioned. “It’s corrosive. It’s harmful. And it must be banned.”
Ocasio-Cortez additionally put Trump on blast.
“Donald Trump is a prison who was discovered responsible of 34 felony counts of fraud, chargeable for sexual abuse,” she mentioned. “In fact, he’s mendacity and abusing and manipulating the inventory market, too. When he talks about rapists and criminals, he ought to look within the mirror.”
See extra from Monday’s “Combating Oligarchy” rally in Nampa, Idaho: