MAGA Rallies Around Andrew Tate
Despite the serious sex trafficking charges facing the influencer and his brother, Trump supporters are going to bat for them.
Can MAGA Fight the Charges Against Andrew Tate?
PROMINENT MANOSPHERE INFLUENCERS and accused sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested by U.S. marshals in Miami last weekend, as they were set to host—what else?—a bare-knuckle boxing match.
Video of their arrest, which quickly went viral, showed Andrew Tate dressed in clamdigger pants and an unusual purple shirt unbuttoned down almost to his navel. But maybe the most surprising thing is that it happened on American soil at all.
That’s because, despite years of accusations involving rape and sex trafficking, the Tates have enjoyed a strangely close relationship with Trump world that seems to have extended to preferential treatment from the government. Andrew Tate has had numerous friendly conversations with Barron Trump and Donald Trump Jr., according to the New York Times. With the influencer brothers unable to leave Romania for years as the investigation went on, prominent Trump world figure Ric Grenell reportedly spoke to Romanian officials about their case. Soon after those conversations, the Tates were allowed to leave Romania.
Another time, after the troubled pair had their phones seized last year, Trump official Paul Ingrassia reportedly intervened to help them.1 And just days before their arrest last weekend, the Tates were partying in Washington with Trump administration luminaries.
Incredibly, nearly all of the MAGA movement’s embrace of the brothers has come after they were first accused of sex trafficking in 2022. That seemed pretty crazy for a bunch of people who claim their biggest issue is child sex trafficking. But it seemed the friendly feelings for the Tates might have reached their limits last week after they were arrested to be extradited to the United Kingdom, where they face new charges related to allegedly choking women unconscious and raping them.
And yet, despite the seriousness of the crimes, there is still a growing movement on the right urging the Trump administration to intervene and prevent the extradition.
Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.) has become one of the Tates’ most prominent defenders in the aftermath of the extradition, claiming in a tweet that they’re victims of politicized “lawfare” in both the U.K. and Romania. He doesn’t specify why he thinks the brothers would be targets of lawfare—what political reasons these countries would have for taking down the Tates. Nevertheless, Hamadeh said the Trump administration should refuse to extradite the brothers, who are dual American and British citizens.
“There should be no extradition of American citizens when the charges are unclear and political,” Hamadeh wrote.
Right-wing influencers and media figures are also supporting the Tates. White nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes said their extradition would be a “national humiliation.” Far-right influencers the “Hodge Twins” compared the Tates to pro-Trump comedian Russell Brand, himself facing rape charges in the U.K., ostensibly to imply both were being unfairly targeted. And hustle-bro podcaster Patrick Bet-David went so far as to say the Tates were an inspiration to fatherless children.
“I think they’re doing more good for society than bad, if you ask me,” he said on his podcast following the extradition, though he admitted that the Tates were “very complicated human beings.”
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THE RALLYING AROUND THE TATES has put meaningful pressure on Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has the power to block their extradition or see it go through. While both Rubio and Trump are reportedly unwilling to intervene to help the influencers, Rubio didn’t entirely foreclose the possibility at a press conference Wednesday, saying he didn’t see a role for the State Department “at this moment.”
“I’m not going to opine on something that’s still working through a legal process,” Rubio said.
That’s a fairly neutral stance to take on two men accused of being prolific international sex criminals! And given the Trump administration’s willingness to drop investigations into political allies or give them pardons and commutations, it doesn’t seem impossible that a pro-Tate pressure campaign could end up winning the brothers their freedom.
Tate lawyer Joseph D. McBride, a MAGA figure who has also represented January 6th defendants, appears to be courting administration support. When Ingrassia, now acting general counsel of the General Services Administration, tweeted on Sunday that the American system must protect “the presumption of innocence” in an apparent reference to the Tates, McBride retweeted him and other prominent Tate supporters.2
The online defense of the Tates is congealing around the idea that the brothers simply can’t receive a fair trial in a British court. Pointing to news stories and an exaggerated report on the British government’s slow response to immigrant “grooming gangs”—combined with its enforcement of laws that would violate American free speech standards—many on the right are convinced that the British justice system is essentially illegitimate.
But there is a secondary element to MAGA’s continued Tate brothers embrace that can’t be ignored. This movement has become instinctively distrustful of these types of allegations—at least when directed against one of their own.
Donald Trump himself has faced numerous rape and sexual assault allegations that he claimed they were politically targeted against him. While Trump blamed his legal woes on the “deep state,” Tate has adopted a similar concept, saying he’s being punished by operatives from an unspecified social control scheme he calls “The Matrix.” Per his telling, Tate is not facing legitimate criminal investigations because of his misdeeds, but, like Keanu Reeves’s Neo in The Matrix, is being punished by Mr. Smith-type “agents” for attempting to pull the rest of humanity into the real world.
That argument hasn’t always landed. In a 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson, Tate grew frustrated after his attempt at explaining away his criminal charges foundered when Carlson said he had not actually seen The Matrix.
“There’s a bunch of other similarities, which are difficult for me to explain because you haven’t watched the movie,” Tate said.
Ingrassia denied helping the Tates in an interview with ProPublica, though the outlet said it had reviewed a written request from Ingrassia supporting them.
Ingrassia, who received his law degree from Cornell in 2022, absurdly claims that the presumption of innocence “is what separates America from the world, and is what makes this country exceptional.” In fact, British law, which provided the foundation for American law, also holds the presumption of innocence sacred.
"MAGA Rallies Around Andrew Tate”
Is anyone surprised?
Solidifying Rs as the party of rapists and sex traffickers; led by dear leader.