The Tate Brothers, in Federal Custody, Watch Their Powerful Backers Go Quiet

 

The Tate Brothers, in Federal Custody, Watch Their Powerful Backers Go Quiet

 

After Andrew and Tristan Tate, prominent leaders of the so-called manosphere, were arrested in Miami, many of their onetime allies on the American right pulled back support.

 

By Megan Twohey Isabella Kwai Matei Barbulescu and Alan Feuer

July 23, 2026

Updated 3:40 p.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/us/tate-brothers-trump-tucker-carlson.html

 

On Sunday morning, hours after the manosphere influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested by federal agents in Miami, one of their representatives reached out to Alina Habba.

 

Not long ago, Ms. Habba, a lawyer, was a vocal supporter of the Tate brothers as they faced allegations of human trafficking and other serious crimes in Romania and Britain. In a podcast appearance in January 2025, shortly after being named a counselor to President Trump, she told Andrew Tate, “I got your back over here.”

 

Now the brothers were in a federal detention center after Britain requested their extradition for a slew of new criminal charges there. Their representative wanted to know: Was Ms. Habba free to talk?

 

She did not respond, according to two people familiar with the outreach. It was a sign of the brothers’ eroding support among their onetime allies on the American right.

 

In recent years, the Tates had leveraged their enormous following of young men to cultivate support among Mr. Trump’s advisers, family members and other prominent conservatives. Those efforts paid off last year when, feeling pressure from members of the new Trump administration, Romanian prosecutors lifted a travel ban on the brothers, freeing them to leave the country and jet-set around the world.

 

But they are now facing a new level of legal jeopardy. Britain has issued 38 charges against them, including rape and sex trafficking; Andrew Tate was also charged with extreme pornography and indecent images of children. The brothers have denied all of the criminal accusations and called the charges politically motivated.

 

The extradition request has forced the Trump administration to participate in the process: Federal prosecutors are representing the British government’s case in a Miami court.

 

Mr. Trump does not plan to intervene in the case, said the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on Thursday. And many of the Tates’ allies in the president’s orbit, who were once happy to be associated with their brand of hyper-masculinity, now appear to be backing away.

 

Ms. Habba, who is no longer in the administration but still speaks with Mr. Trump, wants nothing to do with the Tates, according to people familiar with her thinking.

 

Paul Ingrassia, the acting general counsel of the General Services Administration, who previously served on the Tates’ legal team and has lavished praise on Andrew, wrote a post on X shortly after the arrests criticizing “politically driven prosecutions.” In a call with The New York Times on Thursday, Mr. Ingrassia said the post was simply articulating his beliefs about the Constitution.

 

Asked if he still supported the Tates, he said, “I have no ongoing connection to them now.”

 

Donald Trump Jr., who once called Andrew Tate a friend and publicly defended him against previous criminal allegations, has said nothing about the arrests. Neither has his younger brother Barron Trump, who had also been friendly with Andrew. Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who backed both brothers on her popular show, has also stayed silent.

 

Privately, people close to Donald Jr. have played down his relationship with the Tates; one person said he had not spoken with anyone in the administration about their arrests.

 

Asked by The Times about his retweeting of Tristan Tate on Saturday, Roger Stone, a prominent Republican operative, said he did so before the news of their arrests. And Paolo Zampolli, a special envoy for Mr. Trump who had hosted the Tates at a party in Washington two days before the arrests, said he hadn’t realized the extent of the allegations against them.

 

“I didn’t know they were arrest material,” Mr. Zampolli said in an interview.

 

Not everyone is pulling back from the brothers. Representative Abe Hamadeh, Republican of Arizona, spoke out against their extradition, writing on social media that “political lawfare is dangerous.”

 

The conservative media star Tucker Carlson, who has conducted sympathetic interviews of the Tates, told The Times, without evidence, that he believed their arrests were related to their outspoken criticism of Israel.

 

“After decades of ignoring grooming gangs and covering for Jeffrey Epstein, the British and American governments seemed to have lost interest in prosecuting sex crimes,” Mr. Carlson said. “Then the Tate brothers criticized Israel, and I was reminded that under certain circumstances they’re willing to act.”

 

Joseph McBride, a longtime lawyer for the Tates, disputed that their support had eroded. He said he was not surprised that any Trump official who had previously backed the brothers was now taking a more neutral stance given the administration’s role in the legal case.

 

Mr. McBride said the Tates were focused on fighting the extradition request in court rather than seeking help from Mr. Trump’s circle. He said he was unaware that a representative for the Tates had contacted Ms. Habba.

 

“There’s no reason at this point for Trump to parachute in from Air Force One to the courtroom, because we think we’ll win in court,” Mr. McBride said.

 

In recent years, there has been only one instance in which the United States has refused an extradition request from Britain.

 

The Tates, who have American and British citizenship, made their fortunes by running an online pornography business, first in Britain and then Romania, and by selling online courses to young men. One offering was called P.H.D., for “Pimping Hoes Degree.”

 

Romania began its investigation into the brothers in 2022. Two years later, prosecutors in Britain charged the brothers with rape, sexual assault and human trafficking. The two countries agreed that Britain would wait to extradite the Tates until the Romanian criminal investigation was done, but that case has suffered major setbacks.

 

Since their release from Romania in February 2025, the Tates had been living large, spending time in the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong and Russia. During a January visit to Miami, they made headlines when a video circulated of them partying at a club with Nicholas J. Fuentes and other far-right influencers while the song “Heil Hitler” by the rapper formerly known as Kanye West blasted from speakers.

 

They did not go to Britain, where they faced not only the 2024 criminal charges but continuing investigations into other accusations.

 

In March, a police watchdog group said it was reviewing potential misconduct by the officers who had originally investigated rape and sexual assault allegations against Andrew Tate from 2015. Shortly after, the British police reopened that investigation.

 

Last year, after the Tates visited Florida, the state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, opened an investigation of the brothers. His office also sent an email to Matthew Jury, a lawyer who represents several Tate accusers in Britain, promising to assist if Britain ordered their extradition, as first reported by The Times of London.

 

Mr. Jury’s law firm passed the message onto the home secretary through an intermediary but did not receive a response, according to a person familiar with the communication. As recently as June, the firm wrote letters to Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticizing the government’s inaction over extradition, according to The Telegraph.

 

That month, prosecutors in Britain, including one who specializes in cases involving child sexual images, successfully fought an effort by the brothers asking the court to disclose the names of the women in the original criminal charges.

 

The Tates were arrested on Saturday evening as they arrived at a bare-knuckle-boxing event that Andrew was supposed to co-host. British prosecutors said the charges stemmed from incidents that happened between July 2010 and August 2017 but did not disclose names or other identifying details.

 

In the days before the arrests, the brothers had been posting on social media from Washington, where they were photographed with Representative Wesley Hunt, Republican of Texas, and partied with Mr. Zampolli.

 

Mr. McBride said in a statement on Saturday that the extradition request was approved by a “low-level functionary at the Justice Department who never got approval from leadership.” But higher-ups in the agency did sign off on the arrests, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss it.

 

The Tates will remain behind bars in Florida as a federal judge considers whether Britain has met the legal threshold for extradition, a process that could take months. If the judge signs off on the extradition request, it will then go to Secretary of State Marco Rubio for final approval.

 

Asked about the request while traveling in Manila on Wednesday, Mr. Rubio said that while the matter is considered by the judge, “there’s no role for us to play at this moment or maybe ever.”

 

Lauren Southern, a former conservative influencer who has accused Andrew Tate of raping her in Romania and provided testimony to Romanian authorities, was among those who celebrated news of the extradition request.

 

“It’s been a really wonderful weekend for those of us who are rooting for justice,” she told The Times. “Now there’s a reckoning and suddenly everyone wants to pretend they had nothing to do with building this beast.”

 

It is unclear where the Romanian criminal case against the brothers is headed and how it may be affected by the extradition request. The country’s foreign minister said she had not been informed about it ahead of time. A spokeswoman for Romanian prosecutors did not comment.

 

The Trump administration’s willingness to honor the request is fueling rifts on the American right, as Mr. Carlson, Mr. Fuentes and others seek to frame it within broader political talking points. More traditional conservatives, like Ben Shapiro, are accusing the Tates’ allies of embracing misogyny and criminal behavior.

 

“The conservative movement should cast them aside now, just as it should have years ago,” Mr. Shapiro told The Times.

 

Reporting was contributed by Michael Crowley, Shawn McCreesh, David Ovalle and Ed Wong.

 

Megan Twohey is an investigative reporter at The Times. Her work has prompted changes to the law, criminal convictions and cultural shifts.

 

Isabella Kwai is a Times reporter based in London, covering breaking news and other trends.

 

Alan Feuer is a reporter for The Times who covers the effects President Trump has had on the courts, the Justice Department and the broader rule of law.