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Yesterday, self-described misogynist influencer Andrew Tate appeared on right-wing commentator Patrick Bet-David’s podcast. It was the Eastern-bloc sex-cam impresario’s first media appearance since leaving Romania, where he and his brother Tristan are accused of human trafficking, among other crimes. Tate, a dual UK-U.S. citizen, longtime personal friend of Donald Trump Jr., and supporter of the president, wouldn’t confirm or deny multiple reports that say the Trump administration pressured Romanian authorities to lift the travel restrictions against Tate and his brother. He claims he “didn’t know” if the president had anything to do with his release.
What Tate does know, however, is that the reception toward him in the States has been icy—and not just on the left. A recent (and dubious) convert to Islam who once bragged about breaking a woman’s jaw, Tate nevertheless calls himself “one of conservatism’s strongest soldiers.” But not all conservatives seem to agree.
When the private jet carrying the Tates first landed in Fort Lauderdale from Romania last Thursday, they received news that Florida governor Ron DeSantis had denounced the Tate brothers and said they weren’t welcome in the state. DeSantis added that the Florida attorney general was examining whether the state has jurisdiction to prosecute Tate.
This made Tate furious. In the Bet-David interview, he said that DeSantis had “caved to [media] pressure,” and implied that Florida is a “communist” state—which, as a Floridian, is exactly how I feel every time I pay a SunPass toll.
DeSantis wasn’t the only subject of Tate’s ire. He also went after Megyn Kelly—who criticized a Tampa Young Republicans club for inviting Tate to speak to the group on X—and other conservatives who have denounced him, including Ben Shapiro, Dave Portnoy, and others. Then he went after conservatism in general.
“In the conservative world, an accusation is the same as a conviction,” Tate yelled from behind sunglasses while wearing a too-tight blazer, saying right-wing influencers who criticize him “sound like a girl. . . it’s gay,” and are secretly jealous of the attention he receives. He complained to Bet-David about American conservatives, saying: “They’re a pastor, they live in Nebraska, they married their first love, and they have a white picket fence and they go to church every Sunday. Great, good for you. Guess what? Most men in the world don’t care what you say, because there’s no light without dark, and I have enough dark to bring the light.”
Here’s my take: MAGA may be a big tent, but no tent is big enough for both Nebraska pastors and unscrupulous Eurotrash pornographers. Eventually, somebody’s going to have to move out.
Hopefully, it’ll be the guy who brags about beating women. Andrew Tate’s message might appeal to a minority of very angry and alienated young men on the internet, and some on the right might want to reflexively defend him as someone who has been vilified and censored for his beliefs. But as I wrote last month, voters uniformly have rejected extremism on the left, and they will do the same to the GOP if it replicates the same sort of extremism on the right.
The broader public—and even the regular Trump voter—will not tolerate the valorization of a goofy metrosexual pimp. DeSantis won’t tolerate it. And Trump shouldn’t either.
For more on the moral test facing the right, read River’s piece “The Online Right Is Building a Monster.”
