With the arrest of two far-right influencers over the weekend, Democrats may have been handed a superweapon to wield against President Donald Trump, according to an analysis published Monday in Zeteo.
On Saturday, far-right influencer Andrew Tate was arrested in Florida along with his brother, Tristan Tate, on a sealed warrant that was later revealed to be for rape and trafficking charges filed in the United Kingdom. The Tates were previously arrested in 2022 on rape and trafficking charges in Romania, though the case has since stalled following pressure from the Trump administration.
Both Tates have denied any wrongdoing, with their lawyer, Joseph McBride, insisting that both will ultimately “walk free.”
How the Tates’ arrests could play into Democrats’ hands, Zeteo argued, was through their extraordinarily close ties with the Trump family.
“It seems incredible, particularly in light of ongoing scandal over sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his links to Donald Trump, that senior Democrats with national platforms and profiles did not this weekend seize on connections between the Tates, the Trumps, and the Republican Party, in order to flood the zone with comment and questions, and shine a harsh spotlight firmly the way of the White House,” Zeteo's Martin Pengelly wrote. “It’s not as if material is lacking.”
As noted by Pengelly, Andrew Tate bragged about having “access to the president’s son” in 2016 after a visit to Trump Tower and taking a photograph with Trump, then president-elect. The Tates’ lawyer, McBride, was “a friend of Trump Jr. too,” Pengelly wrote, with Trump Jr. defending the Tates in public after their 2022 arrest.
Andrew Tate also joined Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, on a video call in 2024, and boasted that year that he was “very close with the Trump family.”
“The Tates are due in federal court in Miami next week. Surely – surely – Democrats must now realize that voters need to know more about the web of ties between these accused rapists and traffickers and the president’s family,” Pengelly wrote.
“To reach for the obvious comparison, imagine if Joe Biden was still in office and his son, Hunter, was revealed to be close to two men accused of sexual assault and trafficking. Would the GOP hold back? To use the terminology of another Anglo import now leaving U.S. shores – the World Cup – it’s a glaring open goal.”