Like father, like son.

From TNR: Barron Trump’s Creepy Ties to Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate Exposed:

Andrew Tate, the self-avowed misogynist and accused sex trafficker with a massive online following, has a powerful ally in the White House: Barron Trump.

The college-aged Trump has been building a steady bromance with the woman-beating influencer since at least 2024, the pair’s mutual friend Justin Waller told The New York Times.

Tate and his brother Tristan are under criminal investigation in several countries related to their web cam business, facing accusations of sex abuse and human trafficking. The pair allegedly trafficked more than 30 women in Romania and Britain. Andrew Tate, who has amassed a following of millions of teenage boys and young men while calling himself the “king of toxic masculinity,” also stands accused of raping and beating a minor in Romania.

And as Newsweek reported, the relationship included dating advice:

The Times report alleges that Andrew Tate has nurtured relationships with both Barron Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

The report states that Barron Trump admires Tate and that the two spoke on a Zoom call. The Times attributed this information to Waller, who they said was on the call.

The report states that on that call, there was a discussion about a shared belief that the Romanian criminal case was a bid to silence the Tate brothers.

Justin Waller claimed to the Times that he had offered Barron Trump dating advice and also said he had attended a dinner at Mar-a-Lago hosted by the teenager.

Waller also told the Times that Tate had become a “big brother” to Barron.

The New York Times has extensive reporting on how the Trump administration and others helped free Tate and his brother from Romania:

Days before Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House, Andrew Tate got some good news.

Mr. Tate and his brother, Tristan, swaggering influencers in the so-called manosphere, had been under criminal investigation in Romania since 2022, accused of coercing women into pornography. Andrew was also accused of rape and of having sex with and beating a 15-year-old. The brothers, American and British citizens, had been barred from leaving Romania while prosecutors built their case.

Now, in a Jan. 14 text message, Mr. Tate indicated that help was on the way.

“I had word from The Trump admin that theyre on top of things,” Mr. Tate wrote to someone close to him, in a message reviewed by The New York Times. “Ive been told ill be free soon but Trump needs to see me in Miami,” he added.

The next month, an extraordinary order came down from the highest levels of the Romanian government, a Times investigation found. The prosecutors were told to find a compromise with the Tates. Despite their misgivings, they lifted the travel restrictions, a move that Romania’s prime minister thought would appease the Trump administration.

Chris Hayes discussed the article with one of the authors, Megan Twohey and here's some of their discussion from his show this Thursday:

HAYES: Everyone, I think, has a picture of these individuals at this point. They were in Romania. It's very clear from your reporting, even though the Trump administration has tried very hard to run away from it and deny it, and Romanian officials have tried to deny it, that there was some pressure put by the Trump administration to get these guys back to the U.S.

TWOHEY: Yeah, well, what we found was that their release from Romania was really the culmination of, years-long efforts by Andrew Tate in particular to forge very strategic alliances with prominent figures on the American right, media figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, people in the Trump family. First, Don Jr., and then Barron, and then eventually some of his supporters, who were very public with their support and defense of him and their criticism of the Romanian criminal case, ascended into the Trump administration.

HAYES: Alina Habba has talked about him, Richard Grenell, who has a kind of freelance portfolio and in fact admits that he discussed the case with a Romanian official.

TWOHEY: Right. So right. Exactly. Paul Ingrassia, who actually served on the Trump's legal team, he ascends into the administration as well. And so after the after this new administration comes in, Richard Grenell, in particular, we found, had discussions with at least two Romanian officials about the Tate's case, one at Mar-a-Lago in December of 2024 , the second in February, the conference, an international conference in Munich.

And what we also found was that within days of that second conversation, an order from the highest levels of the Romanian government came down to the prosecutors in the criminal case saying, you've got to meet, you've got to strike a compromise with the Tate brothers. And they were not...

HAYES: They were unhappy.

TWOHEY: They were outraged, but they did follow through with ultimately lifting their travel bans, which the Romanian prime minister believed was going to appease the Trump administration.

HAYES: It's truly like it's really a shocking set of events and incredibly script was reporting about all this and people should check it out at the New York Times where you can read some of these texts and you can read more about some of the allegations uh against uh Andrew Tate and his brother which the men deny.

You can watch the entire segment below: