Has there ever been an American presidency so overtly devoted to the pursuit of sex crimes as that of Donald Trump?
Trump’s own history on this front is fairly well documented at this point. It’s been nearly two years since a jury found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Which came after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape which revealed his “grab them by the pussies” comments.
Americans elected him president after both revelations.
When he got elected president this time, Trump set about stocking his cabinet with what we’ll euphemistically call “problematic” figures:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he paid $50,000 as part of a confidentiality agreement to a woman who alleged he sexually assaulted her.” (CNN)
His first nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, quit Congress on the eve of an ethics report that found “paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex or drugs on at least 20 occasions, including paying a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017. (CNN)
His education nominee, Linda McMahon, is facing a lawsuit which “claims that Ms. McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon — who together led W.W.E. starting in the early 1980s — had failed to act on credible allegations that an employee of the organization had sexually abused “ring boys,” who ran errands and assisted with various tasks before wrestling matches. “ (NYT)
Health Secretary Bobby Kennedy Jr. … where do we even start?
All of this is well-known by now, I suppose. So why do I bring it up?
NYT:
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate, the British American online influencers who had been held in Romania for two years over criminal investigations, have left the country for the United States, Joseph McBride, their lawyer in the United States, said on Thursday.
Their sudden departure from Romania raised questions about whether the Trump administration, which Andrew Tate has openly aligned with, played any role. Romanian officials said that the United States had not put pressure on them, and the Tate brothers’ lawyer, who has long lobbied U.S. lawmakers on their behalf, said he could not comment on whether U.S officials had used their power to free the men.
Still, the lawyer, Joseph McBride, added: “Do the math. These guys are on the plane.”
The math isn’t too hard to figure out. Financial Times reported last week that U.S. officials, including envoy Richard Grenell, pressured Romania to lift travel restrictions on the Tate brothers while they wait trial on sex trafficking charges.
Why would Trump go to bat for Tate?
Their most expansive alleged crime, human trafficking, became part of Andrew Tate’s online brand. He actually sold an online course to his followers on how to do it, what he called the “Pimping Hoes Degree.”
Experts say that the techniques Tate taught in this course and elsewhere could be seen as a textbook for how to engage in literal, criminal human trafficking — and the messages Tate espouses across the manosphere are replete with boasting about violence towards women, sexual assault, grooming underage girls, and emotional abuse.
Concerns about Tate encompass real concerns about public safety, and whether boys who have prolonged exposure to him could become more aggressive toward the women around them. At the same time, Tate and others in the manosphere have been credited with helping swing the 2024 US election resoundingly for Trump among young men.
Trump isn’t just stocking his government with sex pests. Sex pests — it would seem — are part of the Trumpian coalition. Which is why he is putting his government at the service of sex pests like Andrew Tate.
I'd be curious to hear the reasoning of whatever intellectual giant in Trump land thinks pressuring Romania to allow him to flee was a good thing. I assume that if Ron DeSantis saw any way to extract benefit from this, he'd be taking credit for it rather than announcing Tate is "not welcome" in Florida.
Buy a lot of pepper spray and lock up your daughters.