they start going home, weekends, things like that, there's a lot of concern over their safety. so they're trying to work with them to see how law enforcement can step up security for some of these lawmakers. >> shim kon prokupecz, thank yo. chris? i am chris cuomo, welcome to "prime time." you've heard about what happened with reddit in gains town? we have people on both sides of this story. we have the man who created the reddit forum that led to the game stop forum, and the ceo of the app robin hood who created a new firestorm today. how? i'll tell you. it is going to be something that united aoc and senator ted cruz against that organization and him. amazing, they finally asomething

what can it be? we'll take you inside why. here's our main story. the enemy is within. nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, saying democrats are threatened by a cult of chaos rising within the ranks of the gop, listen. >> we will probably need a supplemental for more security for members. when the enemy is within the house of representatives. >> it is a party at war with itself. and the leaders now seem to have no control. the proof, you have the main republican in the house, kevin mccarthy. he told his caucus to get along. the next day, upstart congressman matt gates went to the home state of liz cheney, number three in the caucus, and attacked her personally. >> if you want to prove that you have the power, defeat liz

cheney in this upcoming election, and wyoming will bring washington to its knees. maybe we ought to fight the neo-cons at home so we don't have to fight them in washington, d.c. but that's the problem, isn't it? because the neo-cons are at home in washington, d.c. i had a chance to communicate with president trump yesterday. [ cheers and applause ] he sends his love, he loves you all so much, and president trump is going to keep fighting for this country with every breath that he has. >> now i wanted you to hear that last part. two reasons there. one, he's going after his own. two, you heard why. hold that thought. remember, it's not just gaetz. this q-anon kook elected to the house in georgia, from georgia. members were quick to call her an aberration. mccarthy said he would have a private meeting with her to talk about these extreme q-anon

views, that she'd change. he just put her on a key committee. remember who this person is. marjorie taylor greene. this is her chasing down a parkland school shooting survivor. she believes parkland was a false flag event, fyi, meaning it wasn't what we thought it was. newtown also, where all those kids were killed. she goes after this kid telling him she has a gun with her. then when a reporter tries to ask her a question, he's threatened with arrest. she's now scrubbing her social media. but cnn found a post where she once supported shooting nancy pelosi. so you have your answer. the war in the gop is over. and we know what won. worse won. because gaetz as you heard, he doesn't take orders from the leadership, he takes orders from the same man who said that q-anon congresswoman was a future leader in the gop.

you know who that is? this guy. and here's more proof that it's over. kevin mccarthy flew down to kiss the ring of the man he criticized for stoking the insurrection on january 6th. why do you think? because they are doubling down on the division. it's over. that's what it's going to be about. and you have to prepare yourself for that, and the democrats have to figure out what to do with it, biden too. because it's the same thing in the senate. mcconnell pulled that bait and switch, right? he proved his undying loyalty to the king, right? he voted to dismiss the trial after begging for time to give the trial its due. after saying trump provoke the mob and fed them lies. why would he make that reversal? now you know why. it's over. they're not about character. they're not about law and order. they are about following the law of what trump orders. they won't even call out any of

the extreme right groups by name. some members like miss greene and others want to bring guns on the floor of congress, don't want to submit themselves to metal detectors, and threaten violence on other members of congress, according to pelosi. here's what we know for sure. the acting capitol police chief has just called for permanent fencing around the capitol post-insurrection. can you believe this? are the people safe inside? are they safe from one another? what does that mean for us? we finally have a president taking aim at the pandemic and related problems, but what can get done on the pandemic in the midst of pandemonium? let's bring if the better minds. david gregory and governor john kasich join me to you. gov? not an easy assessment to hear of your party, but what do i have wrong? i mean, all of the dots seem to connect into this kind of deal of disruption. >> i'd say the only thing you

may have wrong, there's a remnant of normal people in the republican party who aren't buying into this. chris, the situation is that the republican leadership has really gone along in in fostering these lies, these conspiracies. you know, the election was stolen, you know -- even that in and of itself is enough to say. so what has to happen in order to wake people up is the republicans in a clear voice have to say, we lost the election. you know, plain and simple. and then there are people in the party right now -- and frankly, trump was a false prophet, chris, he was a false prophet. when he told people, the people who go paycheck to paycheck, whose kids are not doing well, whose jobs are at risk, he's telling them, i'll fix all this. and those folks, you're not going to -- you've got to give them ideas and give them some hope. because much of this is about desperation, conspiracies.

but i've got to hold the leadership and the party accountable for this, because they continued to foster untruths. not untruths, they foster lies and misinformation. and people out here, some of whom are desperate, are willing to latch on to anything. and that's how trump became the false prophet. >> well, he still seems to be in control of the flock. david, let's flip the analysis for a second. what are biden and the democrats to do? because, look, i've been very open. i thought cutting a deal with mcconnell for any kind of power sharing, even having a discussion, was a mistake. and yet biden says he wants things done in bipartisan fashion. kasich says there are good faith republicans there. you hear that from democratic senators as well. so do they try to get a deal on the pandemic? or do they go full trump themselves and just force it down through reconciliation, not even try and work with them? >> look, it's going to be both. i think biden wants to try.

i think he wants to go for big deals, big pandemic package in response, and only as a last resort will he go to reconciliation. i think he will. i think he wants to move very, very quickly -- >> he won't get a big deal even with a handful of republicans. he could get a piecemeal deal. that's all the reporting that we hatch, from my sources as well. you can get key components done. vaccine financing, money for unemployed extension, money for people hard up. you're not going to get the 1.9. >> that's going to put him in a tough spot, because the need for money, for vaccine distribution, or to help schools get reopened, that is so vital. it may not be in the country's interest for him to hold out to try to get something bigger. i want to make a point about the republicans, too. we don't know what the heart and soul of the republican party is right now. what we know is that trump still has a lot of influence, and we know that leaders in the house, like mccarthy, who want to be

speaker, are going to go kiss the ring, literally, for power immediately. they want power in 2022, maybe looking into 2024. i think the future of the republican party may be different. maybe the governor's right, that it comes back to your rank and file republicans and other conservatives who try to figure out how they get back to some semblance of what they were. what we don't know is how big that trump base is now. there are a lot of republicans, i agree with the governor, who have left him. he couldn't get re-elected, he's a one-term president. he has power, we just don't know how big it is. we know there's plenty of enablers still. i actually think a little differently about mcconnell than you do, chris. i think mcconnell fired a flare and was hopeful people would run toward it, other republicans, and he was wrong. they didn't. and he decided to hang back. >> yeah, that's called not leadership. right? because leaders lead.

>> right. >> you vote the right way because that's the message you want to send, that's a flare. what he flew up was a match in the wind. i hear you, i hear the analysis. i would defer to you because you may not be the older brother but you're the smarter one. gov, you have mccarthy going down to see trump. that's not something -- >> that's ridiculous. >> -- you do anyway, even when the president loses and he's a good guy, you don't do that because it's a new administration. what do you say to kevin mac car snow. >> atrocious, it's embarrassing, it's shameful. you don't see mcconnell going down there, i agree with david, you're seeing something different out of mcconnell than you see out of kevin. going down there to florida, all in the name of power, power politics. all in the name of reinforcing a false prophet, who misled people, many people, who were desperate. and not only just poor people, but people who think the system has worked against them. and trump was out there telling

them, i've got all the answers. that's to some degree why they won't let go. and also because the notion that this was stolen, that the democrats are about to destroy america as we know it. that is still alive. one thing about biden, chris, that i will say to you, he needs to try to get a package that is critical in terms of the things -- some of the things that david has talked about. you know, the unemployment. the pandemic relief. the things that are really critical. and if i were him or advising him, i would tell him to meet with some of these republicans. there were five of them the other day who voted the right way. try to make some of it bipartisan. and be reasonable. now, because you've got to give a little bit to get something. if they will not cooperate, then you'll have no choice. then he should use the bully pulpit to say, the republicans don't want to do anything. but you have to make that effort. remember, chris, critical aid for the pandemic relief is vital for america. >> right.

>> but he's got a lot of other things he's talking about. and remember, he said he was fighting to fix the soul of america. so that sort of is bigger, bigger than a lot of these issues that we can talk about on climate -- cly president's cri cr climate's critical, i agree, but he's going to restore the soul of am america. republicans have to help him by telling the truth. >> not going to happen. >> there's one bad fact i want the audience to remember. it is my understanding that there's a billion dollars that has been spoken for by congress, but has not been apportioned yet, it hasn't been spent. that's going to be a problem again. it was a problem last time, a problem this time. there's still a billion dollars they voted to spend that they haven't. and that's going to be something that the biden administration's going to have to figure out. you know what? you know, the governor's kind of right, but ordinarily, what's going on in the opposing party

isn't your problem, but it is biden's problem. because all of this is a distraction from what he wants to be focusing on. >> right. and, you know, the real problem in republican circles right now is that trumpism is -- has become this lie. it's become an attack on our elections. it's become this big lie that the election was stolen. you know, matt gaetz talking about taking on neo-conservatives. there's an argument over jobs, over training, over china, over america's production of power in the world. but trump forfeited that conversation of consequence when he decided to act like an authoritarian president and to launch an attack on another branch of government. so mccarthy and gaetz and others who are engaged in all of that are having an untruthful conversation. but biden has to deal with that republican party that is still showing majority saying trump

should rerun, should run again in 2024. so he doesn't know who to deal with because other republicans are happy to take him on, on spending or take him on on the woke left or the cancel culture. he's got the two schisms, the two parts of the republican party coming at him at a time when he's got limited time to do something big. he has to ask himself what you're asking, what's the incentive of the other side to really join hands with me to achieve big things here, rather than just wait for this next election cycle, which began yesterday? >> david's key word, gov, the last word to you, but the key word with david is big. biden has to deliver big things to make his party and his constituency happy. how does he do that with this climate? >> let's fix the country, let's focus. you make a little compromise here with the republicans and try to get something that we can all agree is critical. and i want to also tell you, chris, if the republicans don't start to talk about these ideas and their solutions, a number of

the ones that david just mentioned, in my opinion, the republican party will cease to exist. one final point. in politics, you need to take the heat. it's not about re-election. it's about what you stand for. we put up a flare? no, don't just put up a flare, seize the high moral ground. that's what politics is about. that's what leaders are about. they are the ones that say, let it come, bring it on, and i'm going to withstand it, and in the end the truth shall win. we need more of that out of, frankly, out of everybody in politics today. >> well, i would define everybody as everybody in your party right now, because i've never seen the gop in the situation that it's in right now. >> yeah. >> david gregory, thank you. >> i agree. thank you. >> i'll give you the last word, gov. i can't catch you mid-breath like that. >> there are people on the hard left of the democratic party who are just vicious attackers -- >> but they didn't start an insurrection on the u.s. capitol and refuse to name the -- it's

not a both sides situation here, gov. >> i'm not trying to compare them exactly, but i'm saying when you sit around the table at home and the argument starts with brother and mom and sister and everybody else, you can't have one side continuing to do things that light a flare on the other side. >> no, i hear you. you know how i end it at my table right now? you tell me why your party isn't saying that these groups are terrorists and they don't want any part of them, and why they're not saying they should be held accountable. when i silence comes i say, shut up and eat. >> they're dead wrong and they should be calling him out and they shouldn't be visiting him in florida. it's wrong. it's dead wrong. and the lies are wrong. and they've got to get on the right road or they continue to damage our country. >> they're picking up speed but not in the right direction. david gregory, thank you. governor kasich, thank you times three. you saw the one thing that brought aoc and ted cruz together, okay? they do not like each other. aoc says she won't even work

with him on this, by the way. it is outrage at the robin hood app's stock block, as they call it, in the middle of this game stop controversy. why does this matter so much? it's about the big guy against the little guy. and it looks like the system was rigged in a place that's called robin hood that's supposed to be for the little guy to help the big guy. is that so? the ceo of robin hood joins me live along with the creator of wall street bets. is it confusing? yes. but it certainly can be made understandable. i will lay it out for you. > then we are going to take it up with both sides. first, the terror threat that is hovering over washington is not a theory, it's not hypothetical. we've had two arrests near the capitol in the last 36 hours. andrew mccabe on the race to stop another deadly assault next. lanning and advice

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around the reality that nothing is over. once they open this pandora's box of allowing hateful people to start recruiting within the traditional political ranks of unrest, we were going to have problems for a long time to come. new arrests more than three weeks after the attempted coup at the capitol. the most recent ones today in missouri and new york. but those all stem from january 6th. there are still problems, fresh

ones. tonight the feds are more worried about what could be coming. as we reported from that new dhs domestic terror bulletin. and they may have just gotten a taste of that. police say a west virginia man was arrested near the capitol wednesday. he had a handgun, 20 rounds of ammo, a list of lawmakers, and stop the steal paperwork. okay? whether or not he had what it took to carry out the threat or not in miss mind, in his mentality, we'll see. but the message is clear. he told detectives he was concerned about the honesty and integrity of the election. there was another man arrested today. he tried to get around a security checkpoint and fought with the officers. let's bring in andrew mccabe. where do you draw the line between, okay, these are one-off guys who are not in full control of themselves, versus, no, this is extremism that is going to be planned and acted on, lone wolf, or in combination?

>> chris, you've always had your one-off people who approach the security checkpoint, feel like they want to get inside for whatever reason, and cause a ruckus. sometimes those things even end violently. that's normal business in securing the capitol or the white house or what have you. this is different. what makes it different is each one of these individuals is carrying with them some evidence, some indication, that they are responding to the big lie. so your 71-year-old gentleman from west virginia is carrying documents that are reiterating the stop the steal thing. you have the guy who was arrested in california a day or two ago with five pipe bombs in his house. he's also got all kinds of rhetoric on social media feeds and other places about his kind of rabid support for former president trump and his frustration about the election having been stolen. so what you're seeing is this ideology perpetuated by

president trump is uniting extremists of all stripes under the flag of trump. and that's what makes this threat from domestic extremists particularly dangerous. >> one more thing. how big a deal is it that the extremists can look and see a q-anon member in congress, even if it's just one, if they can point to the fact that, hey, they don't even say our names, they don't even accuse us of anything within the republican ranks, they won't even try trump for this, they don't believe any of this? does that just play as politics? or does it have signaling value? because we've never had that before, andrew. we've never had something that you guys were worried about on the doj side being ignored by our politicians. >> that's right. these folks have been marginalized for decades, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, they're being authenticated. they're being held up. they're being validated by the

president of the united states. by united states representatives to congress. you can't overstate the significance of that sort of acknowledgement. this is a group of people, particularly the q-anon folks, who they look for codes written on the side of a milk jug. they are really focused on interpreting things in the direction that they prefer. so when they see someone like a marjorie taylor greene espousing these theorys, then getting rewarded with a prime spot on a congressional committee, that's a very significant signal to them that they're doing the right thing, they're on the side of the right, and it causes them to keep going forward. >> what does it mean for them to see mccarthy with trump and to hear people saying that they won't even try trump for what happened? >> you know, if i'm them, what i'm hearing from looking at that picture today of trump and mccarthy at mar-a-lago, the message they get is, it's not

over, continue, move forward, you still have the support, the president is still out there, he's pulling for you, mccarthy, the republican side of the congress that he represents is still on your side. and that is enough to breathe new life into their movement, to put some wind behind their sails, to keep these insane plans moving forward. >> how worried are the brothers and sisters who are still on the job about what's to come? >> yeah, very. very. you know, you can put people in jail when you build a case, you have evidence. in this case, many, many people, right, from the capitol attack, you can identify them, do the hard work of finding them, building the cases. but you cannot stop an ideology, and that's what this has become. it's become a political, violent ideology, and we're going to be dealing with the outcome from this for many, many years. you're not going to be able to put pandora back in the box. >> the only thing that has

really slowed these guys down is one of the leaders of the proud boys being identified as a confidential informant. that's the only check on their enthusiasm they've had, not a good sign. andrew mccabe, thank you for giving us the straight talk on this. we have this pandemonium, this poison in our culture, all on top of a pandemic. one of the most contagious variants of covid overseas is now in the united states. that means it's going to spread, okay? how will it impact the fight? and what is the deal with two masks? i know it's out there. i think it's about politics but i'm going to give you the straight information from dr. sanjay gupta. he's got answers for you next.

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it's beyond sad that after all this death, we still don't get it with masks. we're still being begged to wear a mask. there's still more people on the right who want to chase people around like me and say, look, he didn't have it on the whole time. encourage you to wear it.

it's become political and it's literally made us sick. worse than so many places in the world we should be in front of and above. now a newman confess case, are two masks better than one? here to answer that for us, chief doctor sanjay gupta. doctor, always a pleasure, appreciate you being with us. >> great to be here. >> let's talk masks. what's all this drama about? what do we know about one mask, two masks? what's the guidance? cdc says, wear a mask. what are we supposed to think about multiple masks? >> well, you know, i think it's a very worthy discussion, chris. it feels like the discussion we had spring of last year where it was masks or no masks. now it's a question of what's the best mask? not all masks are created equal. and this is against the backdrop of these variants, these new variants that are more transmissible. i'll tell you what i'm hearing. talking to a lot of people about this, gottlieb, the former fda

commissioner's written about this. an increasing drumbeat of people saying, if you're going to be in situations where you could potentially be exposed, you could have the best protection possible. what is the best protection possible? probably something like this, an n95 mask. why is it so good? >> that's a beauty. >> it's not the best color but it fits really well. >> the double band, top notch. >> it gets you the fit. these have electrostatic finers in here. the reason that's important, it's like your blanket in the dryer, catches all the socks. these help catch the viral particles. 95% protective. >> the fit clip on the top of it, which is nice when you have a delicate nose like yours. >> exactly. and it does give you that fit. you breathe in, you feel it sort of actually give you the fit. some people say they're too uncomfortable. we're not saying wear it all the time. but if you go to a place where you're going to be around a lot of people, people say the n95 mask is the best bet.

abar koran at harvard said if the country did this for six weeks we could end the pandemic. people saying you can't get the n95 masks, that's true, they're hard to get. k95 masks out of china have emergency use authorization in this country. similar electrostatic fiber, similar protection. that's what the discussion is. if you're going to wear a mask, shouldn't you be wearing the best mask possible? especially in high-risk situations. >> it reeks of politics and political football to me. they were so anxious to crush fauci about this. i know and you know and anybody who wants to check the record can know, tony fauci never said, wear two masks. >> right. >> he said, wear a mask, and somebody asked him about wearing two masks, he said, if you want to wear two masks, wear two masks. it reeks of this being a political football. fauci never said, wear two masks. the guidance is wear one. compliance is maybe 50% if we

need it at 90%. is this just politics playing arole here again? >> i think unfortunately it probably is. it's tough to disentangle anything completely from politics right now. i think what also happens is that sometimes you have a certain situation, then you justify the situation. we don't have enough n95 masks, therefore, let's thought recommend them. we could have been in a very different position. this was a big topic for rick bright as a whistle-blower saying, we need to make tons of n95 masks, everyone needs to have them. the country didn't do that so we still don't have enough masks. i get this from a hospital, i can only get a new one if it gets ruined or soiled, that's when i can get a new one. there's simply not enough anymore. but i do think the kn95 masks from china can play an important role and we need to make more. as opposed to saying, we don't have enough so let's not recommend them. the answer is, we should make more. >> the numbers are starting to

come down in cases. now we start getting the variants. and it raises a question that people don't want to ask let alone answer, which is, are these variants going to force -- should we expect lockdowns? because if they spread so much more quickly, we know we don't have the mask compliance we need, is it going to change the case rate and require some type of more extreme measure? >> you know, you're right, no one wants to hear this, chris. and i feel like i look at the data and understand what is happening in other countries. we talked to clarissa ward in the uk yesterday. it's a dire situation as the transmissibility of the uk variant has really wreaked a lot of transmissibility over there. let me show you the important numbers here if we have them. basically, if something is more lethal versus more contagious, play that out. play it out for a month. a month is six generations, a generation is five days, the average incubation period. after a month, after six

generations, you get far more deaths from something being more contagious versus being more le lethal. let that sink in. basically, it's more contagious, therefore it's likely to spread to vulnerable populations, therefore encounters where you weren't likely to get infected before become higher-risk encounters. grocery stores, whatever it may be. and that's how you get a much higher case fatality rate. what causes shutdowns? people will see those numbers, but i can tell you what ultimately drives it is what's happening in hospitals. you start to get hospitals that are simply overwhelmed. they have no more space. they call the leaders and they say, look, we've got no escape hatch here, you've got to stop transmission. the most effective way to do that is just basically stop people actually coming together in any way for a period of time. who knows? i don't think the country's ready for it. like you said, they don't even wear masks. but that would be an effective strategy, at least for a period of time. >> quickly, do you think that we should expect a travel ban from

south africa, given the variants coming from there? >> look, i -- i don't know. i don't know what's going to happen, but i'm not sure it's a good idea if it does, and here's why. two cases in south carolina already. no known travel history. no known connection. they were tested a few weeks ago. the likelihood is there are far more cases here already. >> it's too late? >> yeah. uk variant, one month tomorrow, it will be one month since the first case was diagnosed of the uk variant, it's now in 30 states around the country. it spreads really quickly. also, with the travel ban, you and i were sitting on the set together when they announced the travel ban in europe. what's the first thing people did? they all started coming back. you get the significant influx which could at least acutely even worsen the problem. >> it's amazing how america has made her own problems in this situation. sanjay, thank you very much, brother, appreciate you. >> all right, any time. all right, our appreciation to sanjay gupta as always.

so by popular demand, all of you guys were asking me questions about the gamestop situation and the reddit and did you see it and robin hood and what's going on, power to the people, the little guy found a way to beat the big guy, then -- oh-oh, the game got twisted. so why is everybody talking about the stock of this struggling video game store? gamestop, if you've got kids, you've heard of it. but if you don't or if you're young and you don't game, maybe you didn't. the question becomes, how did this army of redditers shake up the market by betting against it? why are members of congress, who agree on almost nothing, uniting on this? we did the research, we have the story, and we have the two key figures in the drama. you will not want to miss this next.

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we had an extraordinary shift unfolding in front of our eyes. individuals started banding together, taking on establishment politics and exposing a broken system.

the result was a seismic fluctuation more volatile than the stock prices of gamestop, amc theaters, or bed, bath & beyond. stocks that by traditional measures should be in trouble, especially amid the pandemic. malls, movie theaters, not exactly busy places these days, right? that's why big money movers like hedge funds started shorting those stocks, shorting just means betting on them to fail. a community on the website reddit called wall street bets, they reacted by starting to buy up the stock. they did it so much that gamestop started the day up 25% -- up 2,500% up from a year ago, okay? that leads to stories like a line cook watching his $4,000

investment become $67,000. a pastor who made $1,700 in a week. meanwhile, the move was a major blow to major hedge funds. some needing multibillion-dollar infusions to stay afloat. we don't know how this ends, but we know, for too long the hedge funds are the ones that get the big bailouts, right? the big banks get the big help, the little guy doesn't. that's what this story feels like. so if you want to understand the power of the moment, you have to look at the political forces aligned on this one. aoc, ted cruz, elizabeth warren, and donald trump jr. -- i don't know why we include him -- they're all on the same side. honestly, i don't know why i included him, the guy's not a politician, he just says inflammatory things to help his father and his own brand. anyway. that power is fueled by anger.

something both sides of our political divide want to harness these days, it seems. in this case, the anger is targeted at a system too long off limits to those without means. the little guy loses and the big guy gets richer. reality as obvious as our huge and growing wealth gap, right? you all know the story of this country right now. we're waiting for somebody to somehow figure out a way to make it more equitable, more fair. we stand witness to a storm of people taking their shot, targeting the hedge funds they see as having the advantage. the rise of no-fee trading due to the popularity of online brokers like robin hood provided access. in a way it helped dep accuratize investing because it let people bypass traditional fees. the outcry when companies like robin hood and ameritrade imposed restrictions today just shows the fury that exists

behind what for far too many is still the foreign world of wall street. in the face of that fury, as well as a class-action suit, robin hood will now resume some limited buying of stocks like gamestop and amc. the question is, why did they stop the trading? let's dig into the decision with robin hood's ceo, vlad tena, thank you for joining us. >> chris, thank you for having me. this is surreal for me. i've been watching your show live, especially through this past year. >> i appreciate it. look, you know my audience. this is not an investment show. and i don't think it needs to be. i don't really care about your capital commitments, your liquidity, and what was going on in the regulatory side. and i'll talk to you a little about that. but i want you to address the obvious. this looks like a move by an outfit called robin hood, which is supposed to be taking from the rich and giving to the poor, and doing exactly the opposite. that when the big guys,

including one of your main investors in your company, started to lose, you shut down the game to starve the little guy. fair criticism? >> that's not what it is at all. and i know you started this segment -- it really resonated with me because you described the story of robin hood. robin hood started five years ago by pioneering commission-free, no account minimum, mobile investing. we've been the spokesperson of the individual investor, and our whole goal as an institution is to enable those customers, empower them, and give them access to the markets. because for the longest time, markets have been only accessible to the wealthy. and so the entire industry adopted our business model in 2019. and in 2020, we added millions of new customers. the entire industry added millions of new customers who took advantage of the market rally and became investors for the very first time. so, you know, we had to make a very difficult decision to

protect our customers and our firm -- >> why? >> we in no way -- >> why? explain why you had to do it, if it wasn't to protect the guys who had shorted the stocks, which are the big hedge funds. how are you helping the little guy investors? >> well, i know that there's rumors around that, you know, we were directed by market makers or other market participants to do this. and i want to be 100% clear. this decision was not made on the direction of any market maker or other market participants. are. >> so why'd you do it? >> robin hood as a brokerage has lots of financial requirements, sec requirements, we have to put up money at clearinghouses. the amount of money that we have to put up depends on market volatility. and we're in a historic situation where there's a lot of activity and a lot of buying concentrated in a relatively small number of symbols that are going viral on social media.

so we haven't really seen anything like this before. and to prudently manage the risk and the deposit requirements, we had to restrict buying in these 13 stocks. but customers that thousands of other securities and stocks on our platform were available to freely trade. and our number-one priority as you mentioned is to make sure our platform is reliable, stable for our customers. we're serving our customers and giving them the tools -- >> that's exactly what's a question now. >> we're doing everything in our power to turn it back on as soon as prudent. >> but that's the thing. is that the trust is in question because it seems like the only people who are getting hurt were the big shots. and that if they were benefiting from this, your small investors now believe that you wouldn't have shut down the game. just one thing without getting in the weeds here. you don't control the listing venue for gamestop. i used to work in finance so i

know this stuff. the audience doesn't need to. the new york stock exchange does. so if anybody was going to control the listing, and shut it down, it should have been them, but it wasn't, it was you. and the reason that they do it is very limited. they do it because they think there's evidence of fraud or they think that there needs to be a material disclosure by the company that hasn't been made. and that's done to protect the investor. you checked none of those boxes here because you don't control the venue. you didn't know about any information that gamestop or any of these other stocks needed to put out. you don't have any reason to believe that there's fraud that you articulated and you're certainly not protecting these people who've been living the dream of making money especially at the expense of the big guys so why should people believe you did this for the right reasons? >> well, we have no choice. we have to comply with all financial requirements -- >> the s.e.c. hat said you had to do this. >> well, lots of brokers have to

comply with these financial requirements and restrict -- and issued restrictions on some of these names. and this is an industrywide thing. you, yourself, mentioned that other brokers this week have imposed restrictions. and firms, but for robinhood in particular, this isn't because there's, you know, deals happening with market makers we route to or market participants. >> but then why did you allow people to keep selling but not buying? the reason that is so troubling to people is that they were making money buying the stock because they were against the short side. and so sell but not buy, it sounds like you were allowing the hedge funds and, again, one of them owns a piece of you. and they had a big short position and that looks like you didn't come out straight on from the start. address that. >> well, none of that had

anything to do with our decision to do this. again, this was just looking at regulatory requirements, financial requirements, and we 100% will always protect our customers. where the entire business is operating to empower individual investors and has been since its founding. and that's what robinhood is committed to continue to do. so we want -- we don't want to restrict buying in these 13 stocks. we're doing the best we can to re-enable it as long as it's operationally and prudent from a deposit standpoint. it's about us complying with the financial and clearinghouse deposits and regulations. >> then you need -- you know what you need, i'll give you some free advice. you need somebody who sets those requirements to come out and say that this is why this happened because otherwise, it smells

bad. especially for a place called robinhood to have citadel securities, your largest customer, investing $2.75 billion to bail out one of the biggest losers in the gamestop short. you know, they both deny, you know, you and citadel say this wasn't concerted action or anything, but it looks terrible. so you need somebody to justify your decision. do you think you can do that? >> there's a lot of misinformation out there, and i'm not going to speak for what regulators say, but you can talk to any of the brokers that have made similar restrictions. telling you the same thing. and this is a highly regulated industry. it's nonnegotiable for us to cooperate with the regulators, follow their guidance and we're in constant communication with them. so it's -- we have to be extremely buttoned up here. >> i heard you. i saw you on another channel,

they were saying so it is a liquidity issue? robinhood didn't have the money to control the flow. you said no, no, no, it's not the issue, we don't have a liquidity issue. if you don't have a liquidity issue but stopping the trading because you couldn't meet certain capital requirements, how does that reconcile with itself? >> well, we feel pretty good about the situation and, you know, we did this preemptively, right, we had to -- we were looking at the deposit requirements. we were looking at the operational requirements. so we did this proactively and we feel good about being able to re-enable these things and we definitely understand when we impose restrictions, when we lift them. . ultimately, brokers have to impose these types of restrictions because the capital requirements can change, and we're in unprecedented times and the financial system operates in very technical ways with regard to settlement and money

movement, and it's no way around that. it's just the reality -- >> i hear you. >> -- of our business. >> i hear what your rationale is. but, again, now we're going to be watching this story because you have political forces i've never seen aligned before who want to make sure that the big guy's now finding a way to get over on the little guy because the country i think has just about had it with that. so you're caught in the middle and we'll be watching. and i hope you're acting in good faith and that the trading resumes and the market can settle itself. but vlad tenev, thank you for coming in and making the case for robinhood. >> thank you very much. and absolutely, we want nothing more than to enable investing and access to as many individuals as possible. that's our mission and it's in the name of the company. >> just got to make sure that something named robinhood isn't rigging it for the sheriff of nottingham. you know what i'm saying? like if you're going to set it up where the little guy can win, they should be able to play

firly fir fairly and see that on it. you have this as a venue as we move along. good luck. the other side of the story is individual investors who came together on reddit which is an amazing story in itself. the man who founded wall street bets is here. his name is jamie rogozinski. a nice irish name. he did step away from it last year but he's here now. i saw you, i know you're heated up about this, mr. rogozinski. first, jamie, what was your response to what you heard from the head of robinhood? >> thanks for having me. i want to start by saying i hope you take it easier on me. i don't have as much experience as him. i'm glad i got to hear his answer. i've been asked that question day in -- all day long. and i've been left but to speculate. to me, it sounds like the same conclusion you were kind of getting to which is they -- having a liquidity issue. i don't know enough about their profile. my suspicions were they were

under pressure from regulators. that's the most logical step based on the fact that robinhood caters to this very demographic that has made them so successful. doesn't make sense for them to turn their back on their customers. so i'm glad that i got a logical explanation out of him. >> why is it logical? because the investor side says, look, this is exactly what happens. you know, we find a way to finally compete by basically crowd sourcing our own investment strategy to compete with people who have more money to put into the market and by the way, we're betting on us by trying to hold these stocks up and, yeah, we're making money, but we're going against these big guys just trying to take it and now they stop the game so they can figure -- >> i'm saying, i think they didn't really have a choice, and i buy into that. that's a logical thing. but these people have a right to be mad. i mean, these people are

participants and they deserve the same rights as all the big players. i think part of the reason why this story has a feel-good component to it is because, yeah, the little guys are getting together and they're actually being able to unite and be an opposing force to these institutions that have historically dominated this invite-only market. and so, you know, they have a reason to be upset. the fact that now that they've finally been able to get a voice and get the spotlight, they get the rug pulled from under them, so i understand the anger on their behalf. >> the only other thing, i know you're not with it anymore, but do you have any concerns you're inherently getting people into a game that is not that much unlike gambling and that the odds may be even more everybody who goes in but not really because of block trades and the speed with which they can trade and the idea of democratizing investing. is that a little misleading because of the nature of the game? >> you know, there is a new round of game -- you're talking about the speed and there's more

technical components, the execution of these trades, robinhood is not known as necessarily being the best one, but these particular -- the people that are coming into this type of trade, they don't care about those little things. they don't care if the other -- the people that are behind these orders are front running them. they don't care -- >> i hear you. what they care about is it being fair? and it's interesting -- >> they -- >> -- a place to come together, they did something that was really interesting about power of the people. even against the -- >> that's right. >> -- power of the powerful. >> that's trright. >> i appreciate you for talking to us about it. thank you for being with us to give shape to this story. we'll be watching it, all right? >> thaunk you for having any. >> taking the opportunity was you. the big show with d. lemon starts now. i've never seen anything like that before. >> this is the layman's part of it. i look at, okay, this is what the 401(k) is doing and the investment people are doing