When asked about the Tates at the White House on Thursday, President Trump said: “I know nothing about that.”

But the brothers have been the subject of recent high-level discussions between the US and Romania.

Romanian officials say US counterparts brought up the brothers’ case with the Romanian government earlier this month, a story first reported by the Financial Times.

And Trump special envoy Richard Grenell raised the issue again at a security conference in Munich.

Hurezeanu said the Tates were mentioned during that conversation, but denied being pressured to release the pair.

The Tate brothers are Trump supporters and also have ties to figures in his administration.

One of Tate’s lawyers now works as White House liaison to the US justice department.

Paul Ingrassia was part of a team representing the Tate brothers in a defamation lawsuit they filed in Florida against several of their alleged victims.

Ingrassia also acted as Tate’s publicist and says he got the influencer onto a show hosted by Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host.

He has praised Tate in online posts. In one dating from July 2023, he called Tate “an extraordinary human being” who was offering “a dying West some hope for renewal”.

Ingrassia did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The Tates have also been talked about by several people in Trump’s orbit, including Donald Trump Jr and Elon Musk.

Trump Jr once called Tate’s detention in Romania “absolute insanity”.

Musk reinstated Andrew Tate’s account, which had been banned on X, and suggested, perhaps in jest, that Tate would make a good UK prime minister.

Joseph McBride, a lawyer representing the Tates in a defamation case they have filed against several of their accusers in Florida, said in a statement: “They feel secure in America for several reasons, the primary one being that Donald Trump is the president.”

The statement alleged that the Tates and others are victims of “weaponised legal systems” and “politically motivated prosecutions”.

McBride did not respond to questions on whether White House officials played any role in the removal of travel restrictions against the Tate brothers.