Eat & Drink

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing mounting pressure from within the MAGA movement over the fate of Andrew and Tristan Tate, the manosphere influencers arrested last week on sex trafficking charges, according to a new report.

Rubio holds the authority to block or allow the Tate brothers' extradition to the United Kingdom — a decision that has become the focus of an increasingly vocal campaign from prominent figures on the right, The Bulwark reported Thursday.

Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ) has emerged as one of the most outspoken advocates for the brothers, according to the report.

Hamadeh described their prosecution in both the UK and Romania, where they have for years faced rape and sex trafficking allegations, as politicized "lawfare" and called on the Trump administration to refuse extradition of the dual American-British citizens.

Other right-wing figures, including podcaster Nick Fuentes and commentator Patrick Bet-David, have echoed similar defenses, with Bet-David going so far as to call the Tates an inspiration to fatherless children.

The pressure comes despite — or perhaps because of — a documented pattern of goodwill between the Tates and figures close to Trump, the Bulwark reported.

The brothers have reportedly had friendly exchanges with Barron Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and Trump-aligned official Ric Grenell reportedly engaged with Romanian officials during the years the Tates were barred from leaving that country, shortly before travel restrictions were lifted.

The Tates were also reportedly socializing with administration figures in Washington just days before their arrest.

At a press conference this week, Rubio declined to say whether the State Department would intervene, telling reporters he didn't see a role for the department "at this moment" and that he wouldn't "opine on something that's still working through a legal process."

That carefully hedged language has left open the possibility of future involvement, even as both Rubio and Trump are reportedly not currently planning to act on the brothers' behalf, the Bulwark reported.

Adding to the pressure, Tate attorney Joseph McBride — a MAGA-aligned lawyer who has also represented Jan. 6 defendants — has been amplifying supportive commentary from administration-adjacent figures online, including a tweet from GSA official Paul Ingrassia referencing the "presumption of innocence."

Joe Kent, the former senior intelligence official who resigned from the Trump administration in protest of the Iran war, made a stunning claim Monday that “something” happened to President Donald Trump that “changed” him from that point forward.

“Something in the late spring, early summer time frame happened – I don’t know what happened,” Kent said during an appearance on the “Julian Dorey Podcast” published on Monday.

“I can’t tell you why his mentality changed, but it went from, ‘we’re gonna create the most space we can for [Iran] negotiations and we’re not interested in the war,’ to, ‘okay, we’re gonna support the Israelis, do Midnight Hammer and we’re gonna continue to entertain this.’”

A key pledge of Trump during his 2024 campaign was that he would not send Americans “to fight and die in stupid foreign wars that never end,” reiterating that promise during his victory speech: “I’m not going to start a war,” he said.

And yet, in late February, Trump launched Operation Epic Fury with a large-scale attack on Iran that months later now risks sparking a broader war.

Kent, who's long championed Trump's anti-interventionist rhetoric, said he was confused by the president's apparent shift, and while he could narrow down roughly when it happened, he still couldn't say what caused it.

“I don’t know what happened. And so for me, when something like that happens, from an intelligence background, you do have to step back and look at what else could be influencing the president,” Kent said.

“Did he just change his mind? For him to go through with [launching the Iran war], ultimately, I do think there’s potentially other factors there: so what could those other factors be? Why would a president make decisions that he doesn’t agree with?”

Other conservative figures have speculated as to why Trump launched a war against Iran despite his frequent anti-war rhetoric, including prominent conservative figure Tucker Carlson, who in April floated a disturbing theory that a “blackmail” operation perpetrated by the Israeli government could potentially have forced the president’s hand.