In his first weeks in office, Donald Trump has been busy wielding his power across the globe: threatening multiple trade wars, ripping up US foreign policy, and proposing taking control of Gaza and turning it into a resort.
But the US president’s team still found the time to speak with Romanian authorities about Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, “manosphere” celebrities subject to a travel ban there as they awaited the end of a trial. The dual US-UK nationals also face criminal and civil proceedings in Britain and the US.
The US embrace of the Tates’ cause ultimately bore fruit on Thursday, when the brothers got their passports back and took a private jet to Florida, landing in Fort Lauderdale, one of the closest airports to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort.
Signs of the burgeoning links between Trump’s circle and the Tates — who were arrested in 2022 and subsequently charged with rape, human trafficking and organised crime — became evident as early as 2023.
Andrew Tate that year claimed he “spoke to Barron”, referring to Trump’s 18-year-old son, after his detention in Romania. “I’m very close with the Trump family. I know them well. I spoke to Barron after the incident,” he said after Romanian authorities placed him and his brother under house arrest.
The first lady’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the claim.
A few months later, when Tate posted a video about how he was “locked in my house” in Romania, Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr replied on X: “Absolute insanity.”
In the aftermath of November’s US election, Tristan Tate made a pointed claim about the brothers’ influence in helping Trump win back the presidency. “What Andrew and I (mainly Andrew) have been doing for the last 4 years has been making sure young men in particular grow up immune to the [‘woke mind’] virus”, he posted on X.
“Millions of young men in Europe and the USA have a healthy rightwing approach to politics that they would NOT have if Andrew Tate had never appeared on their phone screens.”
The Tates’ release and flight to the US is one sign of the deep ties between the US president’s team and the cluster of rightwing media personalities and influencers who helped amplify him and bring him back to the White House.
Barron Trump has been credited as the mastermind behind his father’s push into the “manosphere” media in the past few years, suggesting podcast appearances for him during his presidential campaign.
A loose but interconnected cluster of podcasters and online influencers — most prominently Joe Rogan — the “manosphere” has gained influence among large numbers of young men. The Tate brothers, who openly promote misogynistic views, are on the more extreme end of the group.
Andrew Tate, a 38-year-old former kickboxer, in recent years lured millions of men to his YouTube channels, where he promoted a version of masculinity centred around getting rich, physical fitness and fighting back against modern feminism. He has cashed in on his popularity by selling access to a “Hustlers University” that claims to teach subscribers how to make money online.
After YouTube banned Tate in 2022 for hate speech, he moved to rightwing site Rumble as well as X, which reinstated him after Elon Musk bought the company. Tate has nearly 11mn followers on X.
Last month, Alina Habba, Trump’s personal lawyer turned presidential counsellor, appeared on a podcast with Andrew Tate, in which she said she was a “big fan” and “just had to meet him”.
“I agree with everything you say and I have your back out here in the States,” she told Tate. “You’re being under siege and I see it and just keep fighting.”
Habba likened Tate’s detention to Trump’s legal troubles, depicting the two men as victims. “I sympathise with you because I think you go through a lot of the same, ‘show me the person, I’ll find the crime’, that President Trump has gone through”, she said.
Attempts were meanwhile taking place behind the scenes to secure the Tates’ release. Richard Grenell, the president’s special envoy who is frequently dispatched to problematic corners of the world, has been a central figure in the effort, as US officials made it known they wanted the brothers to regain their right to travel, said four people with knowledge of the matter.
Grenell denies he explicitly pressed Romania to return the Tates’ passports. He told the Financial Times his encounters with Romanian officials were limited to running into foreign minister Emil Hurezeanu at a conference in Munich earlier this month. Hurezeanu told local media Grenell had mentioned the Tates.
Two officials said members of the Trump administration also called the government in Bucharest before the Munich Security Conference, to plead on the Tates’ behalf.
Grenell earlier this month said: “I never met with the [Romanian foreign minister]. He saw me in the hallway and asked for a meeting. I didn’t know who he was . . . I had no substantive conversation with him.”
He added: “I support the Tate brothers as evident by my publicly available tweets.”
Andrew Tate posted on X earlier this month: “The Tates will be free, Trump is the president. The good old days are back. And they will be better than ever.”
Trump on Thursday claimed he knew “nothing” about the Tates’ case, while Andrew Tate, on arriving in Florida, said the brothers had been “largely misunderstood”.
Four British alleged victims of Andrew Tate on Thursday said they were “in disbelief and feel re-traumatised by the news that the Romanian authorities have given into pressure from the Trump administration” to allow him to travel to the US.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, sitting beside Trump in the Oval Office, on Thursday said justice must be served. “There’s an English element here, so obviously it’s important that justice is done, and human trafficking is obviously, to my mind, a security risk. And so we’ll catch up with the story,” he said.
The brothers’ legal troubles may not be over. Romania said their cases remained active, while Florida’s attorney-general, James Uthmeier, said his office would “conduct a preliminary inquiry into these individuals”.
“Florida has zero tolerance for human trafficking and violence against women. If any of these alleged crimes trigger Florida jurisdiction, we will hold them accountable,” he said.
The intervention in favour of the Tates reflects the president’s “us versus them” mentality, said Gabriel Kahn, a media professor at the University of Southern California.
“What they’re doing is showing that they take care of their own,” Kahn said. “But also that they stick up for the values of what these Tate brothers produce — which is squarely in the most toxic corner of the manosphere.”
“[Trump] is consistently approaching this cultural moment from a perspective of: who’s on my side, and who’s against us?”
Additional reporting by Stefania Palma, Felicia Schwartz and Steff Chávez in Washington
