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Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested this week.
Columnthe brothers grim
Stars and Swipes Trump, the Tate brothers and the dark politics of the manosphere
The arrest in the US this week of the Tates to face serious charges serves as a fresh reminder of their extraordinary access to the Trump power orbit.
ON MONDAY, ANDREW and Tristan Tate, MAGA cheerleaders, porn kingpins and avatars of toxic masculinity, appeared before a federal judge in a Miami courtroom, shackled and dressed in orange prison jumpsuits.
The brothers, whose multi-million-dollar online empire was built around promoting the subjugation and sexual exploitation of women and girls, face serious criminal charges. They are battling against possible extradition to the UK on foot of a 59-charge warrant that includes multiple counts of rape, assault and arranging human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Their detention in a federal remand facility while the extradition hearing takes place is a reversal of fortune that seemed unthinkable after their triumphalist return to the United States in February 2025.
After sustained pressure from the newly minted Trump administration, the Romanian government lifted restrictions that prevented the brothers from leaving the country, despite their indictment on charges of rape, human trafficking and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women.
During an Oval Office meeting with Keir Starmer on the same day the Tate brothers fled Romania, Trump feigned ignorance about the criminal charges and moves by his special envoy Ric Grennell to secure their return to the US. Meanwhile, the brothers filmed themselves aboard a private jet headed for Miami, dressed in cashmere and clinking champagne glasses as they declared: “We’re back. Massively.”
Trump’s boys
Now the UK extradition case threatens Trump with a scandal of Epstein proportions. Over the past decade, Andrew and Tristan Tate have been the subject of ongoing criminal investigations in the UK, Romania and the US. Given the seriousness of the charges they faced, why did Trump intervene to help them evade prosecution?
Jeffrey Epstein’s patina of respectability as a financier and tax adviser to wealthy elites allowed them to deny knowledge – however implausibly – of his sex trafficking crimes before his 2008 plea deal. The Tate brothers have been remarkably open about a business model built around sexualised content and the recruitment of women to perform online.
More than any other fixtures of the far right manosphere, Andrew and Tristan Tate have been responsible for conflating masculinity and success with the violent subjugation of women. Along with pep talks on fitness and assertiveness, they promote the control and abuse of women as a means for young men to avoid dead-end jobs and ‘get rich quick’.
They flaunt a lifestyle of sports cars, yachts and ostentatious wealth, which prosecutors believe has been largely accrued through coercing women into performing on their online porn sites. And they have been under investigation for rape and assault for more than a decade. Yet they remain welcome fixtures in the Trump orbit.
During a trip to DC last week, they were feted by House Republicans on Capitol Hill before attending a party thrown by Paolo Zampolli, Trump’s special envoy for global partnerships and a one-time associate of Epstein’s. Amongst the attendees were officials from the Department of Justice, the Treasury and the Department of State.
Later that night, they schmoozed with DC’s MAGA elite at The Executive Branch, a private members club with an initiation fee of $500,000 that was co-founded by Donald Trump Jr.
Andrew Tate’s friendship with Trump Jr goes back to 2016, when he also befriended Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Roger Stone.
In mid-2022, after he was banned from YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, Tate found a home on Rumble and financial backers in the form of JD Vance and Peter Thiel, who were big investors in the right-wing platform. Elon Musk, a vocal supporter, promptly reactivated their accounts when he bought Twitter in 2022. Vance continues to follow both brothers on X.
Trump lawyers Alina Habba and Paul Ingrassia have portrayed them as MAGA heroes and First Amendment champions. Charlie Kirk was a fan, along with Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. In July 2023, Carlson flew to Romania to host a softball interview with Andrew Tate, notching up an audience of 115 million.
Podcaster Joe Rogan says Tate is “playing the role of this boastful misogynist who smokes cigars and drives Lamborghinis” to attract “eyeballs and money,” a claim that ignores his male supremacist worldview and exhortations to control women through violence and manipulation.
Monetising dominance
At its peak in 2022, Andrew Tate’s reach was alarming, an indication of the vast appetite for his brand of violent misogyny. A marketing campaign that encouraged subscribers to flood social media with Tate-generated content led to 12 billion views of TikTok videos tagged with Andrew Tate’s name.
Forensic accounting estimates indicate their online porn operation was generating upwards of $50 million a year, and The Hustler’s University, an online course that charged $50 a month to teach young men how to find success through all manner of controversial online pursuits. That brought the Tates close to an estimated $10 million.
The promise to transform the lives of underperforming young men with instant wealth was remarkably similar to the fraud peddled by Trump University, which also promised instant fortunes to those gullible enough to spend thousands on enrolment fees.
Trump’s pollsters attribute the surge in votes from young white and Hispanic males largely to Tate’s endorsement. Tate has boasted about his friendships with Don Jr and Barron Trump, claiming he is ‘very close with the Trump family.’
The Tate effect on politics
The overlap between the millions of young men in the US who revere Andrew Tate and Donald Trump in roughly equal measure was an asset that could yet become a liability for Trump – and his chosen successor. It’s unclear how the Tate brothers’ arrests and their looming extradition battle will affect their relationships with key players within the Trump orbit.
JD Vance in particular has been careful not to alienate the virulent misogynists of the far right. Trump risks antagonising millions of supporters if he rubber-stamps their extradition.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that the US would cooperate with the extradition request. While Rubio theoretically at least must sign off on extraditions, his assurances are meaningless. Yesterday, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told the press that the president had no intention of intervening in the process, but time will tell. Trump, who has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to violate international norms, will almost certainly insist on having the last word.
Already, the Tate’s lawyer Joe McBride, who rose to prominence as the January 6th insurrectionists’ mouthpiece, is portraying them as ‘political prisoners’, parroting criticisms by JD Vance and Elon Musk about the UK’s eradication of free speech.
“They (the Trump administration) are not fans of prosecuting people for free speech,” he told reporters earlier this week. “I would just think as a matter of principle, based on the reasons why that they (the Trump administration) were elected, that they would not want to see two free citizens go to a country where they’re gonna be thrown in jail for political reasons.”
On Wednesday, McBride suggested that Trump’s involvement ‘was not necessary’, adding ‘the process has got to play out’. Exhausting the appeals system could take several years, even without the Department of Justice slow-rolling it at Trump’s behest.
However, a decision on whether to grant them bail rests with the presiding judge. Both men have already established themselves as flight risks based on their prior propensity to flee jurisdictions where they are under criminal investigation.
Whether they are eventually extradited or not, they are almost certain to remain behind bars for the foreseeable future.
Marion McKeone is an award-winning journalist, writer and documentary maker.
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