Why Trump or Rubio won’t help free Andrew and Tristan Tate
President Trump has not intervened in the case against Andrew and Tristan Tate, who have been accused of crimes including rape and child pornography.
As the pornography entrepreneurs and influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate sit in solitary confinement in a Miami jail cell, a key question hangs over their extradition case: Will President Donald Trump intervene on their behalf?
U.S. Marshals arrested the Tate brothers July 18 after Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced a slew of new charges against them including rape, trafficking and offenses relating to indecent images of a child. Those are in addition to dozens of previous criminal charges brought against the Tates filed by CPS and British prosecutors have sought to have the brothers extradited to England, where they used to live, to face trial.
The ultimate decision on extradition of U.S. citizens resides with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who works directly for the president. So far, the Trump administration has said little about the case. Asked directly whether the president planned to intervene, Presidential spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told journalists two weeks ago: “No, we’ve already answered that.”
Andrew Tate has for years been an outspoken supporter of Trump, and has urged his millions of followers to back the president. He reportedly also has connections to the Trump family, including two of the president’s sons, Barron and Donald Trump Jr.
Which raises the question: Why hasn’t Trump intervened? The president, after all, has pardoned several other close political allies and supporters, including fraudsters and more than 1,000 insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, causing millions of dollars of criminal damage and injuring dozens of police officers.
Observers of the Tate debacle and researchers on the “manosphere” — the collection of online spaces and influencers the Tate brothers emerged from — laid out two strong reasons why Trump hasn’t intervened: Though polling shows Trump has lost favor recently with young male voters who helped him win in 2024, Tate may no longer be in a position to help with that demographic. Tate, who calls himself the “Top G,” no longer holds a position atop the manosphere as he once did. Secondly, the Tates are charged with possession of child pornography, an accusation that raises the specter of the Epstein Files and the president’s association with known pedophiles — the very issue that turned many young voters against him in the first place.
Andrew Tate has lost his crown
Several researchers on the manosphere told USA TODAY Andrew Tate’s realm as the undisputed king of toxic male influencers has come and gone.
Young men around the country talk about Andrew Tate “As if he’s so passé and so over,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, founder of the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab or PERIL at American University and an authority on the manosphere. “There’s nothing different in the content the manosphere delivers today, it’s just not him any more.”
Equimundo, a nonprofit that researches young men to better understand masculinity, promote gender equality and prevent violence, revealed In their annual 2026 State of the World’s Men report that Andrew Tate was the least liked in a survey list that included popular manosphere figures like Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Nick Fuentes, and Jake Paul.
Tate is “No longer the dominant cultural figure he was in 2022, and many Gen Z men, especially those who spend time in gaming, streaming and meme-heavy communities, treat him like he’s just a corny, repetitive or washed or chopped guy,” said Caroline Hayes, a senior technical specialist on digital strategies at Equimundo.
Even some of Tate’s most ardent fans no longer worship him as they once did.
“I haven’t really been seeing him like how I used to on the internet,” Arthur Espinoza, who featured in a 2025 episode of USA TODAY’s documentary series Extremely Normal which examined the manosphere, wrote in a text message.
The Epstein problem
Andrew and Tristan Tate have been accused of dozens of crimes related to sexual violence and sex trafficking. In addition to the British extradition case, there are open criminal investigations against the brothers in Romania and the United States, and they have been sued by multiple alleged victims of their sexual misconduct.
The brothers ardently deny all the accusations.
The newest British charges contain something new, however: An accusation of possession of child pornography.
This crosses a red line with many of Tate’s supporters, including some of their high-profile backers who have recently distanced themselves from the brothers, observers of the case said. And the association with pedophilia likely also helps explain why the president has been reticent to intervene, Hayes and others told USA TODAY.
“Trump continuing to associate himself with someone who has been absolutely humiliated by the press and so much of online discourse for the exact thing that he knows he’s under fire for, I think would be a bad look,” Hayes said.
Will Carless covers extremism and emerging issues for USA TODAY.