The Wake Up America show with Austin Petersen

Freedom Family Friday is back and nothing at the dinner table is off limits. Harvard's been handing out A's like participation ribbons for thirty years, graduation crowds are booing AI into the ground, and Thomas Massie just lost the most expensive House primary in history — so we're having the conversation the liberty movement doesn't want to have. 🎓 Harvard admits 60% of grades were A's — facul...

THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY IS DEBATING WHETHER A MAN CAN SHOW UP TO THEIR NATIONAL CONVENTION IN A TUTU. THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE IN 2026. Thomas Massie lost his congressional seat this week in the most expensive house primary in American history. The first person to eulogize him was a democrat from california who immediately started recruiting his voters. Javier Milei cut poverty in Argentina from 41 pe...

THOMAS MASSIE IS GOING HOME TO HIS FARM THIS MORNING — AND THE LIBERTY MOVEMENT NEEDS TO HEAR WHY. Thirty-four million dollars and a presidential endorsement bought a congressional seat in Kentucky last night. This morning we are sitting with exactly what was lost, whose fault it actually is, and what the movement does next. Plus Judge Napolitano on Trump's $1.8 billion constitutional end-run, and...

We mark the 250th anniversary by reading the parts of the Declaration nobody puts on the merch -- Jefferson's criminal charges against a king who blocked western settlement, strangled immigration, and held land promises over men who had bled for them. Then we turn to Cuba, where classified intel says the island has acquired 300+ military drones from Russia and Iran. We go back to the Bay of Pigs t...

MASSIE VS MAGA Feat. @realTomPappert and @TheVinoMom Thomas Massie has become the fault line between the liberty right and the MAGA right. Trump wants him gone. Massie’s defenders say he is one of the last real constitutional conservatives in Congress. His critics say he has become a political liability surrounded by bad strategy, bad timing, and a coalition problem that could poison the movement...

WHY A LIBERTARIAN CHANGED HIS MIND ON IMMIGRATION -- AND THE ELECTION PLAYBOOK THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING ELSE. On today's show, we break down the Japan mosque protests, how Cato's immigration data has been misleading the movement for decades, and lay out a fully updated standard for who belongs in this country. Camellia from AFP-Missouri covers the Supreme Court's unanimous redistricting win, t...

NSFW. THOMAS MASSIE IS FACING EXPLOSIVE ALLEGATIONS FROM A FORMER ROMANTIC PARTNER — AND THE TIMING, ONE WEEK BEFORE THE MOST EXPENSIVE HOUSE PRIMARY IN AMERICAN HISTORY, RAISES AS MANY QUESTIONS AS THE CLAIMS THEMSELVES. We break down the Cynthia West allegations against Rep. Thomas Massie, the congressional slush fund that has paid out millions in taxpayer-funded silence, and the founding father...

America turns 250 and the left is still lying about what the founders believed about education. Then we go after the NIMBYs blocking data centers while China builds the future. Camellia from AFP-Missouri breaks down the new laws Governor Kehoe just signed — including the child grooming statute and the hemp ban that is about to start a fight. And Mike Ter Maat, the 2024 LP vice presidential nominee...

AOC WANTS TO BECOME A GOD-QUEEN Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says her agenda is bigger than any election — and she means it. Tom Pappert joins to break down the redistricting war reshaping the 2026 midterms after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Jon Miltimore on the EEOC suing the New York Times for racial discrimination — and why the paper's defense sounds exactly like what conservativ...

IT'S FREEDOM FAMILY FRIDAY -- Austin, Steffi, and Justin break down the week's biggest stories, from California's political circus to a rabid beaver terrorizing a fishing trip in New Jersey. 🦫 ATTACK OF THE RABID SWAMP BEAVER -- An 8-year-old was fishing with his family in New Jersey when a rabid beaver charged out of the lake and bit him in the leg. The animal has been dealt with. The Second Ame...

The Founders didn't build a libertarian utopia or a progressive origin myth — they built libertarian nationalism, and 250 years later Washington can't define it. Austin reads what Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay actually wrote and makes the argument both sides need you to never hear. Then: Rubio quoted Cypress Hill and started a 2028 primary nobody announced. Vance was in Iowa explaining a w...

The American right has a Jewish problem -- and it's not the one the Groypers think it is. Today we tell the story they buried in your history class: Haym Salomon, the Polish-born Jewish immigrant who financed the Revolution, raised the $20,000 that funded Yorktown, personally lent money to Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe at no interest, and died broke at 44 while Congress stiffed his family. Then w...

WAKE UP AMERICA WITH AUSTIN PETERSEN | MAY 4, 2026 CAN SPENCER PRATT SAVE LOS ANGELES? Early voting starts TODAY in the race to replace Karen Bass -- and the man from The Hills is polling in second place. We break down why the joke became a serious indictment of Democrat governance in America's second-largest city. THEN: Elizabeth Warren killed Spirit Airlines. Saturday morning at 3am, after 34 ye...

Austin Petersen and Jeremy Kauffman host an event in Manchester, New Hampshire to discuss the ideals that are driving conversations around the world.

ON MONDAY APRIL 27TH, THIRTY-SIX HOURS AFTER A MAN NAMED COLE TOMAS ALLEN WALKED INTO THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER WITH A SHOTGUN, A HANDGUN, AND KNIVES AND TRIED TO ASSASSINATE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WAKE UP AMERICA BUILDS THE COMPLETE CASE — FROM BUTLER TO WEST PALM BEACH TO THE WASHINGTON HILTON. THIS IS THE THIRD ATTEMPT ON TRUMP'S LIFE AND THIS MORNING WE TELL YOU EVERYT...

It's Freedom Family Friday and the Petersen family is bringing the heat! Today's episode covers Missouri's landmark bathroom bill -- the redhead science story taking the internet by storm -- Kamala Harris telling Black women to say "imma get mine" while rocking a brand new accent -- the death of dating in America -- and the great workforce flip that nobody in Washington wants to talk about. 🪧 Mis...

🎙️ Jeopardy Bingo Night LIVE | Freedom Arcade Tonight's Freedom Arcade is going full game show — Jeopardy-style trivia meets live Bingo in one chaotic, competitive, can't-miss stream. Austin Petersen and Steffi Petersen are hosting a fast, funny night packed with trivia categories, surprise answers, and Bingo cards that'll have you on the edge of your seat. Think you know your stuff? Phrase it in...

AMAZON BANNED YOUR CHURCH, YOUTUBE FLAGGED YOUR VIDEOS, AND PAYPAL SHUT DOWN YOUR ACCOUNT BASED ON THE HATE MAP OF AN ORGANIZATION THAT WAS SECRETLY WRITING CHECKS TO THE KU KLUX KLAN, AND THIS WEEK THEY GOT HIT WITH AN ELEVEN-COUNT FEDERAL INDICTMENT. The Southern Poverty Law Center has been federally indicted on wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering charges. The DOJ alleges they secretly...

WAKE UP AMERICA | THE SPLC WAS PAYING THE KKK, THE SUPREME COURT'S SECRET POWER GRAB, AND PETE DAVIDSON'S $700K MISTAKE Yesterday the federal government indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on eleven counts of fraud and money laundering — accusing the organization of secretly funneling three million dollars in donor money to Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and Aryan Nations members through shell companie...

JAMES CARVILLE WENT ON HIS PODCAST AND TOLD DEMOCRATS TO ADD TWO STATES, PACK THE SUPREME COURT WITH THIRTEEN JUSTICES, AND -- DIRECT QUOTE -- "DON'T RUN ON IT. DON'T TALK ABOUT IT. JUST DO IT." HE SAID THAT. ON A PODCAST. THAT EVERYONE HEARD. The man who predicted with absolute certainty that Kamala Harris would win the 2024 election has now laid out the Democrat blueprint for permanent one-party...

Tucker Carlson's son Buckley exits JD Vance's White House office as Tucker's war with Trump goes nuclear — and we have the full story on how a man who once had 5 million nightly viewers ended up buying a house in Qatar, platforming Nick Fuentes without a single pushback, and comparing the President of the United States to a slave. We trace the entire unraveling — from praising Elizabeth Warren's e...

WAKE UP AMERICA, RISE AND FREEDOM. The left did not just change adoption policy. It burned down the most effective child welfare infrastructure in American history and called it progress. Faith-based agencies with decades of track records, waiting lists of qualified Christian families, and placement rates the government could never replicate were given a simple choice: violate your beliefs or disa...

WAKE UP AMERICA, RISE AND FREEDOM. Johnny Somali just got six months in prison in South Korea, and the case is a perfect test of whether the West still remembers the difference between liberty and filth. He did not go to jail for “wrongthink.” He went to jail after turning another country’s public life, memorials, and basic civic order into a content farm for the lowest impulses of the internet. W...

ZOHRAN MAMDANI WANTS TO SPEND $30 MILLION ON A GOVERNMENT-OWNED GROCERY STORE IN A CITY THAT IS ALREADY BROKE. The media wants you to think Mamdani is a bold young reformer trying to make New York affordable. He is not. New York City is staring at a massive fiscal hole, small grocers are already operating on razor-thin margins, and Mamdani's answer is to use taxpayer money to become their subsidiz...

TRUMP CALLED THE POPE WEAK ON CRIME. POSTED HIMSELF AS JESUS CHRIST. DELETED IT BY MORNING. AND HIS SPIRITUAL ADVISER ASKED CHRISTIANS TO VENMO HER TEN PERCENT OF THEIR INCOME. ALL IN THE SAME WEEKEND. The media wants you to think this is a story about a president attacking a peaceful holy man for no reason. It is not. Pope Leo XIV -- the first American-born pope in history, from Chicago, Illinois...