President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio aren’t planning to block the extradition to the U.K. of the Tate brothers, the notorious “manosphere” influencers accused of rape and human trafficking.

Why it matters: Andrew and Tristan Tate were part of the coalition of hyper-masculine social media voices advocating for Trump when he was reelected in 2024. The brothers have reported connections to two of Trump’s sons and have had support from top Trump advisers.

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• Officially and publicly, Trump and his administration have kept the Tates at arm’s length because of their sordid reputations.
• “The U.S. has an extradition treaty with the U.K. and the administration intends to honor it in this case,” a senior administration official told Axios.

Driving the news: U.S. marshals arrested the Tates in Miami on Saturday after British authorities issued 38 new sex-crime charges against the brothers, bringing the total combined counts against them to 59.

• They also were indicted on separate sex-crime charges in Romania in 2023.

Zoom in: In court filings, the Justice Department made clear that Rubio has “sole discretion” to block their extradition to the U.K. if he believes the brothers are being politically persecuted.

• On Monday, Tate attorney Joe McBride told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Miami that the charges against the two are “politically motivated. There’s no question about it.”
• McBride said the brothers are innocent and will fight extradition.
• A senior State Department official told Axios that “the secretary has not spoken to the Tate Brothers or their lawyers. The State Department has no plans to act on this matter at this time.”

Behind the scenes: Those who know Rubio’s thinking say the secretary, a conservative Catholic who fought as a U.S. senator for stronger human trafficking laws and protections for victims, isn’t inclined to help the Tates.

• “Marco thinks these guys are scum,” said one source. “Now if the president overrules him, which I don’t think is likely, he’s got a problem.”
• A source familiar with Trump’s thinking said the president wants nothing to do with the brothers.
• “The Tates want to pretend they were responsible for the president’s victory [in 2024], but they weren’t part of our strategy and the president doesn’t know them,” a former Trump campaign adviser said.

Flashback: After Andrew Tate first faced rape allegations in the U.K. in 2015 the brothers moved to Romania, where they began running their online porn business, according to a damning long-form investigation by the New Yorker called “Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse.”

• When Trump won his first election in 2016, Andrew Tate posted supportive MAGA tweets and began messaging the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
• Tate’s online profile grew amid a masculine backlash to the 2018 #MeToo movement. His online courses sought to teach young men how to profit from turning women into “sex slaves,” and awarded “PhD’s” that stood for “Pimpin’ Hos Degree.”

As criminal investigations into the Tates grew, the brothers drew a parallel with the “lawfare” that Trump said he faced while running for reelection in 2023. During that time, Andrew Tate sat for softball interviews with podcasters Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Trump gave a Truth Social shoutout to Tristan Tate.

• After an assassination attempt on Trump in 2024, Andrew Tate told reporters, “I’m very close with the Trump family. I know them well.” He said he spoke with Trump’s youngest son, Barron, and called the president “a bulletproof badass.”

The intrigue: A month after Trump returned to office last year, Romanian authorities reinstated the Tate brothers’ right to travel outside of the country as prosecutors reexamined procedural issues with their case.

• Romania’s foreign minister denied that the decision was linked to pressure from a Trump adviser, Ric Grenell, who had spoken favorably of the Tates. Grenell told Axios the minister broached the topic of the Tates with him and he made no demands.
• Shortly afterward, the Tates flew from Romania on a private plane to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where Customs and Border Patrol officers seized their phones.
• The Tates got their phones back, however, thanks to the intervention of their former lawyer, Paul Ingrassia, who then was a White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, according to Pro Publica. Ingrassia told Axios the report was inaccurate.

Inside the room: Last week the Tates were in D.C., where they met with some members of Congress and rubbed elbows with insiders at the exclusive club, The Ned. There, they ran into Trump confidant and special envoy Paulo Zampolli, the Daily Mail first reported.

• Zampolli invited the Tates to join 150 guests at his July 15 “summer soiree” at Zampolli’s Dupont Circle home.
• Zampolli told Axios he’d met the Tates three times before, starting at the Milken Institute Global Conference this year in Los Angeles, where he sat for a friendly interview on Andrew Tate’s podcast.
• “I did not know these allegations about them,” Zampolli said. “That is on me.”

What they’re saying: One attendee at Zampolli’s party said it was attended by people from the Justice, State and Treasury departments, as well as D.C. insiders and even some World Cup soccer players.

• “The Tate brothers were like celebrities. People wanted to take pictures with them,” the source said. “You never would’ve known they were about to get arrested.”