In the ninth episode of his newest production, “Tucker on Twitter,” former Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson sat down with influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently under house arrest in Romania.

During the 2.5-hour interview released Tuesday afternoon, Carlson and Tate discussed various topics, including the influencer’s arrest and the backlash he receives for delivering his “traditional masculinity” message.

Tate was moved to house arrest in March after initially being arrested in Bucharest, Hungary, in December 2022. Tate faces an indictment alleging that he, his brother, and two female associates formed an organized criminal gang in 2021 to facilitate human trafficking.

Tate told the former Fox News host – who traveled to Romania for the interview – that he and his brother, Tristan, are accused of “mak[ing] girls do TikTok [videos]” to then steal the money those TikTok videos earn.”

Tate then accused the Romanian government of attempting to “coerce” the women to come forward with allegations due to its lack of evidence of actual crimes before adding that the media is slandering him by consistently covering him committing a “heinous crime.”

“I would hate to come across as a conspiracy theorist, but I kind of have a feeling that it might have something to do with my influence in an attempt to slander my name,” Tate said. “But the fact that they chose such a heinous crime, and they report it so heavily, and they won’t shut up … also considering the fact that people who actually commit heinous crimes have way more favorable press coverage.”

Tate, who is an advocate for what he describes as “traditional masculinity” among men, told Carlson later in the interview that he said he believes his message about manhood has made him a target for those who fear men in society that “say no” and have “standards.”

“When you say to men, ‘listen, you’re allowed to have an opinion, you’re allowed to have standards, you’re allowed to have boundaries and barriers, you’re allowed to get up and become important and work hard and try hard to become the kind of man who can’t be controlled,’ then you’re seen as an enemy,” Tate explained.

As of press time, the latest installment of Carlson’s video podcast, posted at 4:05 p.m. Central Standard Time on Tuesday, had 9.5 million views. The nine episodes have been seen 402.6 million times on Twitter.

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Tucker Carlson and Andrew Tate” by Tucker Carlson.