"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
As Andrew Tate faces criminal investigations for human trafficking in Florida, Romania and the UK, leading MAGA influencers are rallying to defend the self-confessed misogynist and antisemitic conspiracy theorist. From Candace Owens to Laura Loomer, pro-Trump figures are spreading disinformation to protect Tate, exposing the dark alliance between the ‘manosphere’ and far right Trump world.
The conspiracy theorists of Donald Trump’s pro-Russia, antisemitic ‘manosphere’ and women enablers including Candace Owens and Laura Loomer are rushing to defend self-confessed misogynist and Jew-hating Hamas apologist Andrew Tate. The campaign of disinformation comes after Tate and his brother Tristan were placed under criminal investigation in Florida for human trafficking.
Tate is a globalized ‘masculinist’ influencer and podcaster popular with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) conspiracy sphere and Trump insiders including Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr, Tucker Carlson, Benny Johnson and young men around the world. Followed on X by US Vice President JD Vance, he celebrates President Trump, and advocates pimping, hardcore forced pornography involving vulnerable girls, and rape. Tate profits from spreading hate about women and Jews, including October 7 and Holocaust denial, to his more than 10 million followers on X and other social media channels. One of Tate’s former lawyers Paul Ingrassia has been appointed Trump’s liaison person for the Department of Justice.
Leading MAGA influencers are furious to see the Tate brothers, dual US-British citizens, again in trouble with the law since their sudden return to the United States. The pair flew in to Fort Lauderdale, Florida last week from Romania, where they are also under investigation for rape and human trafficking and money laundering. Their surprise return occurred after the Trump Administration reportedly pressured Bucharest to permit them to travel.
Holocaust-denying Trump supporter Owens posted to her 6.7 million X followers that: “This is Soros DA level corruption. Desantis (sic) straight up called for this absent any facts. “I’m showing you the man, now find me the crime”. It’s no wonder every neocon backed Desantis.(sic)” The claims were reposted by Andrew Tate.
Owens’ defamation came after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis deplored the return of the accused human traffickers. On March 4, his Attorney-General announced the criminal probe into the Tates. Owens, who is notorious for her international campaign of lies targeting Brigitte Macron, and has been banned from countries like Australia for denying the Holocaust, also invited Tate on her televised podcast, allowing him to scream and utter obscenities and lies about the legal investigation.
Tate posted threateningly on Elon Musk’s X that he was a well-connected Trump-supporting victim of ‘communism’ - even though Florida Governor DeSantis is a hard right conservative Republican. Tate has long alleged that George Soros is part of the cabal behind his arrest and investigation in Romania.
Laura Loomer, another prominent Maga conspiracy theorist, joined in the attacks on the DeSantis administration for investigating the Tates. She posted multiple unverified claims about the staff around DeSantis, claiming they “celebrate the murder of Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt on J6”. Loomer was referring to the US Capitol rioter Babbitt who was part of the insurrection and storming of the seat of the American government on January 6, 2021. Yet Babbitt was not ‘murdered’. She was shot by police as she tried to break into the Speaker’s lobby in Congress. Subsequently she was turned into a martyr by the MAGA-January 6 conspiracy movement including by Trump who called her an “incredible person”, recorded a birthday greeting for her after her death, and demanded the FBI reopen the investigation into her death. The officer who shot Babbitt was cleared of any wrongdoing by two prior federal investigations.
Governor Ron DeSantis’ Administration announced the Florida criminal probe shortly after the Tates arrived in Florida on a private jet from Romania. The brothers are under investigation in Bucharest for multiple counts of rape and human trafficking including of minor women, and money laundering. They are also wanted in the United Kingdom for allegedly sexually abusing and trafficking young women and on tax evasion allegations.
Despite the ongoing investigation they were allowed to travel out of Romania following an intervention from Trump Administration special envoy Richard Grenell, who like the Tate brothers spreads conspiracy theories about USAID and Jewish billionaire philanthropist Soros. Grenell spoke to Romanian Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at the Munich Security Conference in February. Trump last week said "I know nothing about that,” when asked about Tate. "We'll check it out."
Tate has influential backers in Trump-world. The President’s son Don Jr has been a friend since 2016, and has called his arrest and detention in Romania “absolute insanity”. Putin and Trump-promoting former Fox News host Tucker Carlson traveled to Romania to interview Tate in 2023. He has featured several times on Candace Owens’ program (she also interviewed him in Romania) and he was reinstated on Twitter in 2022 when Elon Musk bought the platform and renamed it X.
Musk responded approvingly to Tate’s claims in late 2024 that he was going to run for British prime minister, and form a masculinist men’s movement party to depose Labour PM Keir Starmer.
Tate, who converted to Islam in 2022, is not only a self-confessed rapist and sexual abuser of minor girls and women who teaches men how to sex and human traffic in his ‘online university’. He is a brazen antisemite who denies the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 which he said were a ‘psyop’ or psychological operation that “fits their agenda because the wealthy Jews and bankers own everything”.
He also said the mass murders by Hamas were “the masculine spirit of resistance”. Tate said “all Zionists are genocidal maniacs” and he published laudatory comments about Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar after he was killed in a strike by the Israeli military. Sinwar was “heroic” and “defiant in the face of evil,” Tate declared.
“I was right on Covid and I was right on October 8th I said this was a genocide,” he claimed in a video interview broadcast on YouTube with extreme right pro-Putin podcaster Mario Nawfal, who is repeatedly reposted by Musk. “There are so many scenarios in which I would murder.”
The web of pro-Nazi and white nationalist demagogues around MAGA and Musk have been sympathetic towards Tate who said people should “stop crying over the Hitler crap” in defense of Musk’s Nazi-resembling salute in January. Tate was recorded saying: “I’m kind of thinking we should bring the Nazi salute back. “If you don’t want to see the Nazi salute because it offends you so badly, just don’t call Elon a Nazi… Lean into it, double down. I am all the things you say I am.” Tate has posted about wanting to get in contact with disgraced antisemitic rapper Kanye West and he has been supported by neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.
Tate shared a Fuentes post on X defending him in the wake of Romanian police raiding his home last year. “Just 2 days after Andrew Tate said that ‘the Matrix’ is really just the Jewish mafia—his house was raided and he was arrested again” wrote Fuentes.
In Florida the Tate brothers must answer a legal civil suit from a woman who has evidence they forced her into being a sex slave, and then launched a campaign of defamation against her when she cooperated with investigators in Romania. The Tate brothers' lawyer Joseph McBride claimed the brothers were the victims of a conspiracy. "Today, Attorney General James Uthmeier threw ethics law out of the window when he publicly took a side in an ongoing Florida lawsuit where Andrew and Tristan Tate are suing a Florida woman for orchestrating a sophisticated plot to use sex as a weapon to ruin their lives”.
It is not clear if the Tates will ever return to Bucharest as required by the end of March, or if they will be extradited to the UK where four women have told prosecutors they were raped and coercively controlled by the brothers.
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