The Trump administration has no plans to intervene in the United Kingdom’s push to extradite Andrew and Tristan Tate, the polarizing online influencers facing rape and human-trafficking allegations, despite the brothers’ history of cultivating relationships within Trump’s orbit.
The Tates were prominent figures among the masculinity-focused online personalities who backed Trump’s 2024 campaign, and they’ve claimed ties to two of his sons as well as support from senior figures in his circle. Publicly, though, the administration has kept its distance given the brothers’ controversial reputation. A senior official told Axios that the U.S. maintains an extradition treaty with the U.K. and intends to uphold it in this instance.
U.S. Marshals took the brothers into custody in Miami over the weekend after British prosecutors filed 38 additional sex-crime charges against them, pushing their combined total to 59 counts. The pair also face a separate set of sex-crime charges brought by Romanian authorities back in 2023, according to Axios.
Court documents show the Justice Department has confirmed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds sole authority to halt the extradition if he determines the brothers are facing politically driven prosecution. Their attorney, Joe McBride, told reporters outside a Miami federal courthouse that the case against his clients is politically motivated and that they intend to fight the extradition while maintaining their innocence.
Read more about this topic: Andrew and Tristan Tate face dozens of new charges as UK extradition proceedings begin in Miami
A State Department official said Rubio hasn’t been in contact with the Tates or their legal team and that the department has no immediate plans to weigh in.
People familiar with Rubio’s views say he’s unlikely to intervene on the brothers’ behalf, pointing to his record as a senator pushing for tougher trafficking laws and stronger protections for victims. One source described Rubio’s private assessment of the Tates in blunt terms, while another said Trump himself wants no association with them.
A former campaign adviser pushed back on the brothers’ claims of having influenced the 2024 race, saying they weren’t part of the campaign’s strategy and that Trump doesn’t actually know them personally.
The Tates’ path to notoriety traces back to 2015, when Andrew Tate first faced rape allegations in the U.K. and the brothers relocated to Romania, where they built an online business later scrutinized in a lengthy New Yorker investigation into what it called Tate’s empire of abuse. Andrew Tate voiced early support for Trump’s 2016 campaign and began communicating with Donald Trump Jr. around that time.
Read more about this topic: Andrew and Tristan Tate to contest UK extradition amid sexual offense charges (with video)
His online following expanded during the backlash to the #MeToo movement, with paid courses that promoted exploiting women financially. As legal scrutiny intensified, the brothers began framing their prosecution as a version of the “lawfare” Trump has described facing himself, and Andrew Tate gave friendly interviews to sympathetic media figures while Trump publicly acknowledged Tristan Tate.
Following the 2024 assassination attempt on Trump, Andrew Tate claimed a close relationship with the Trump family, including contact with Trump’s youngest son.
Roughly a month into Trump’s second term, Romanian officials restored the Tates’ ability to travel abroad while reexamining procedural questions in their case, a move Romania’s foreign minister said was unrelated to any pressure from Trump adviser Ric Grenell, who has spoken positively about the brothers in the past; Grenell said he made no demands on their behalf.
Soon after, the Tates flew by private plane to Fort Lauderdale, where border officials briefly confiscated their phones before returning them, reportedly with help from their former attorney, who was then serving as a White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security — a claim he has disputed.
Read more: Trump approves nuclear deal that could let Saudi Arabia enrich uranium (with video)
Just last week, the brothers were in Washington meeting with members of Congress and mixing with insiders at an exclusive private club, where they crossed paths with a Trump-connected special envoy who later invited them to a large gathering at his home.
That envoy said he’d interacted with the Tates several times before, including a friendly podcast appearance, and acknowledged he hadn’t been aware of the allegations against them at the time. One person who attended the gathering said the brothers drew a celebrity-like reception from a crowd that included officials from multiple federal agencies, with guests eager for photos — with no outward sign, the attendee said, that an arrest was imminent.
