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.

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 percent to 27 percent in under two years by actually governing. The American liberty movement has the same ideas and a dress code problem. Today we make the diagnosis and write the prescription.

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 Mike Ter Maat on what comes after the libertarian party.

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 to establish the one rule that covers everything that comes next: half measures are always wrong. And we close with the hardest question in the room -- if the Castro regime falls, can the Cubans still on the island actually govern themselves, or does the best argument for a free Cuba walk around Miami? Plus the prediction market corruption story for what it actually is -- not a technology problem, but the oldest compensation trap in the republic.

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 he helped build. Austin is joined by Tom Pappert and Tiffany Cianci for a full Massie vs MAGA debate.

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, the AI bill that died 11-0 the same morning a billion-dollar factory broke ground in Independence, and what both tell us about Jefferson City's real priorities. Then Cliff Maloney joins us with Run Right -- nine million doors, 418 wins, and the hard truth about why conservatives keep losing winnable races. ⛩️ Thousands of Japanese citizens protest a mosque in Fujisawa -- and what it reveals about civilizational confidence

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 fathers who set the precedent for all of it. Will Chamberlain and Judge Andrew Napolitano join to walk through the legal architecture — what the allegations actually mean, what could be prosecuted, and what happens after May 19th.

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 who walked out the door with forty-five people behind him, joins us to answer the question: Should the LP be abolished?

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 conservatives have been saying for a decade. And Navy SEAL sniper instructor Brandon Webb wrote a parenting book that is not what you expect.

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.

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 war he privately opposed. We run both men through the libertarian nationalist scorecard. Jeremy Kauffman — blockchain entrepreneur and LP of New Hampshire chairman — joins to answer whether a party with no senators, no governors, and a peak of three percent still deserves to exist. The national LP censured his state party. He endorsed Trump anyway. And Maggie Anders, Young Voices Commentator, breaks down Spencer Pratt's run for Mayor of LA — second place in a fourteen-candidate field, Joe Rogan's backing, a viral Gotham ad, and five weeks to the June 2nd primary. Karen Bass called it a Trump impression. Los Angeles is a lot right now.

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 we make the libertarian nationalist case for why Israel and America share the same civilizational DNA -- and why the foreign-amplified antisemitism operation currently running inside the right is not America First. It never was. Plus Judge Andrew Napolitano on the Trump DOJ indicting James Comey over a photo of seashells, and writer Kevin Boyd on Austin's libertarian nationalist manifesto.

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 years and 17,000 jobs, Spirit shut off the lights. Warren's only response? Her 2024 tweet calling the merger block "a Biden win for flyers." Secretary Sean Duffy named names Saturday morning. We have everything. PLUS: The Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 ruling Wednesday that effectively rewrites the Voting Rights Act -- and Florida redrew its congressional map within the HOUR. Dan McCarthy from Heritage joins us to break it all down. AND: Jon Miltimore of AIER joins us live as well as Dan McCarthy from Heritage. JOIN THE PATRIOTS: $17.76/month at wakeupamericashow.com -- 20% off all merch + exclusive in-person events SHOP THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION: 4LibertyShop.com JOIN THE DISCORD: 4LibertyNetwork.com WATCH LIVE: rumble.com/ap4liberty SPONSOR: Expat Money with Mikkel Thorup -- expatmoney.com/austin BONUS CONTENT: $100 raised = 5-min American Revolution hero mini-documentary (plays instead of commercials) $150 = Great Grift Off Liberty Loot LIVE game show -- play on your phone for real prizes

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 EVERYTHING THE MAINSTREAM PRESS WON'T. Austin Petersen breaks down nine years of left-wing rhetoric that built the ideology behind Saturday night's attack — Hasan Piker justifying political murder in the New York Times five days before the shooting, Hakeem Jeffries calling for "maximum warfare everywhere all the time," Jimmy Kimmel calling Melania Trump an "expectant widow" three days before a man tried to make her one, and the left calling the whole thing staged before the smoke cleared. GUESTS THIS EPISODE: ▶ Maggie Moda —@MaggieModa— On the assassination attempt, Erika Kirk's heartbreaking moment Saturday night, and why the left can't stop targeting the widow of Charlie Kirk ▶ Jon Miltimore, Senior Editor at AIER — @Miltimore79 — On the free speech paradox at the heart of this attack: the left spent years arguing speech is violence, and Cole Allen just proved their speech produces it STAY CONNECTED:

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.

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 funneled more than three million dollars to operatives inside the KKK, the Aryan Nations, the National Alliance, and the National Socialist Movement -- while using their hate map to get conservative and Christian organizations deplatformed, debanked, and destroyed. One of their paid operatives was in the leadership chat group that planned the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Biden's DOJ opened the investigation and closed it. Trump's DOJ reopened it. Now it's a grand jury indictment. We have the full breakdown -- the Charlottesville detail the media is burying, the Big Tech angle nobody else is running, and the question of who in Biden's DOJ decided this file wasn't worth pursuing. Then -- the science of fatherhood that the culture does not want you to hear. A Notre Dame anthropologist spent an entire pregnancy collecting his own saliva every week and sending it to a lab to measure his own testosterone in real time. What he found was later confirmed across 624 men in the largest longitudinal study of fatherhood ever conducted. Your brain physically rewires when you show up. Your testosterone doesn't drop -- it redirects. And fatherlessness isn't just a social crisis. It's a hormonal one, compounding across generations. Forty percent out-of-wedlock birth rate and nobody in Washington will say what the peer-reviewed science already knows. We will.

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 companies, in order to manufacture the very extremism they were raising hundreds of millions of dollars to fight. Today we go through every line of that indictment — the prepaid cards, the shell companies, the Unite the Right connection, the hate map that was used to blacklist conservative America, and the question nobody in the legacy media will ask: how many of the dots on that map were kept alive on donor money? Then Judge Andrew Napolitano joins us to break open a story buried for ten years — how Chief Justice John Roberts and four colleagues secretly rewired the Supreme Court in February 2016 while Justice Scalia was on vacation, erased two hundred years of constitutional precedent, and gave birth to the Shadow Docket. This one will make your blood boil. Plus O.W. Root of The Fitting Room joins us on Pete Davidson's $700K tattoo removal journey, the cleanskin vindication, and what his laser bill tells us about American men, identity, and a culture that confused trend-following for self-expression.

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 rule -- four new Senate seats, a rigged Supreme Court, and a redrawn political map designed so they never lose again. Today we answer him. Because we have a statehood list too. And ours is built on freedom, not party math. Alberta wants in. Cuba deserves a fresh start. And the State of Jefferson has been waving a double-cross flag at Sacramento since 1941. Meanwhile the Mayor of Philadelphia just told her constituents "how dare you" question her right to tax their Uber rides to cover a three-hundred-million-dollar budget hole -- in a city Democrats have run for seventy straight years. And Billy Corgan says rock music was purposely dialed down to kill young male energy in the culture. Gerard Michaels joins us to make the case.

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 economic plans in 2019 to attacking Christian Zionists as having a virus in their brains — and explain exactly what it means for Vance's path to 2028. But first — BuzzFeed asked liberal women to explain why conservative men keep pursuing them. They meant it as a warning. It reads like a brochure. We go through every quote live and it is going to be a great Monday morning for conservative men everywhere. @RealTomPappert from the Tennessee Star joins us to break down the Tucker fallout, the antisemitism metastasizing on the right, and the case of Dan Bilzerian — the Las Vegas poker influencer with 29 million Instagram followers who just filed to run for Congress in Florida by calling his Jewish incumbent opponent a "fat Jew" who supports "his parasitic nation." This is not a fringe story anymore and Tom helps us understand why. Then Michelle Backus from Citizens Alliance joins us on the ground-level reality of the 2026 midterms. Republicans can lose no more than two House seats and keep the majority. The enthusiasm gap is real. The precinct work is happening right now in April — and most conservatives have no idea. Watch live and join the conversation at rumble.com/ap4liberty Every $100 raised in Rumble rants, gift subs, and merch unlocks a five-minute Lego-style mini documentary biopic of an American Revolution hero — with the 250th anniversary upon us we have no shortage of patriots to celebrate. Hit $150 and we run the Great Grift Off Liberty Loot game show — you play on your phone in real time for real prizes from the shop. That is not a bit. Shop the 250th Anniversary Collection and Founding Flavors coffee at 4Libertyshop.com Join the community on Discord at 4LibertyNetwork.com Become a Petersens Patriot for $17.76 a month — 20% off everything at the shop plus exclusive events. Link in bio. Smart families are asking the hard question now — if this country takes a wrong turn, what's your Plan B? Get Mikkel Thorup's free special report on second residencies and instant citizenships at expatmoney.com/austin. #WakeUpAmerica #AustinPetersen #TuckerCarlson #JDVance #Midterms2026 #DanBilzerian #RandyFine #ConservativeMedia #RealTomPappert #CitizensAlliance

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 disappear. Most of them disappeared. Three thousand children in Illinois alone were displaced. Not because the agencies failed the kids. Because the ideology failed to tolerate anyone who disagreed with it. Today we ask the question the mainstream press refuses to print: if this was really about the children, why did the children pay the price? And the Swalwell collapse is not slowing down. It is accelerating. Five accusers. A formal criminal investigation in Los Angeles County. A forensic analysis placing him in a Las Vegas hotel room at five in the morning. An Ethics Committee probe he resigned just ahead of. And standing next to all of it, freshly scrubbed and deeply saddened, is Ruben Gallego -- the man who called Swalwell his best friend in the world in November, defended him publicly in April, and only discovered his conscience the afternoon CNN published four women's accounts. We are done treating that timeline as complicated. It is not complicated. It is a portrait of how Democratic power protects itself until the moment it cannot.

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. We break down the sentence, the actual charges, and why countries like Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew understood something the modern West keeps forgetting: freedom without standards turns into public decay. Plus -- Eric Swalwell's collapse is no longer just a scandal. It is a black hole. The allegations multiplied, the endorsements vaporized, the staffers ran, and now the men who stood closest to him are getting dragged into the gravity field. Ruben Gallego wants to play the role of shocked bystander. We examine that performance with the seriousness it deserves, which is none. If he heard rumors, defended Swalwell anyway, and only found his conscience after the reporting dropped, then the story is no longer just about one fallen Democrat. It is about the machine that kept telling the public everything was fine right up until the moment it wasn't. ⚖️ JOHNNY SOMALI SENTENCED IN SOUTH KOREA -- what he actually did, why the court acted, and why punishing public degeneracy is not the same thing as punishing speech

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 subsidized competitor. We break down the math, the ideology, and the people who actually get crushed when government decides it wants to run the corner store. Plus -- Eric Swalwell's collapse is one of the clearest windows you will ever get into how the Democratic machine really works. Four women came forward. Endorsements vanished overnight. Staffers sprinted for the exits. And Ruben Gallego performed the political version of "shocked, shocked" so hard he deserves his own Oscar category. The story is ugly. The timeline is worse. And the party that spent years telling you to believe women suddenly needed a newspaper first.

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 -- has spent months wading deeper into American domestic politics, culminating in urging American citizens to call their Congress members and oppose their own president's foreign policy. A foreign head of state. Lobbying American voters. Against their own government. Trump called it what it is. Today we back him up. Plus -- Sabrina Carpenter headlined Coachella, got called Islamophobic for not recognizing a sound she'd never heard in her life, and the internet convicted her before she finished her piano set. The history behind that sound is more interesting than anything the mob has to say about it.

Swalwell QUITS Governor Race Amid Rape Investigation | Iran War Update | Masculinity Crisis | Rand Paul 2028 | Wake Up America with Austin Petersen Eric Swalwell — the California Congressman who once threatened gun owners with nuclear weapons — dropped out of the governor's race Sunday night as a Manhattan DA criminal investigation opened into rape allegations from four women, including a former staffer. We're covering every angle, including Austin's personal history with Swalwell going back to 2018 when Swalwell called him a "troll" on Twitter during his Missouri Senate campaign. Full accountability, zero sympathy. Then — the Iran war escalated dramatically this weekend. Peace talks in Islamabad collapsed after 21 hours of negotiations. Trump announced a full naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz beginning yesterday. Gas prices are up 31% since the war began. We break down the honest challenges AND the case for why this moment may be the most consequential strategic realignment in the Middle East since 1979. American energy dominance is being proven in real time with an armada of supertankers loading US crude in the Gulf of America. Plus — Jon Miltimore from the American Institute for Economic Research (@Miltimore79) joins us to discuss the Wall Street Journal's fascinating piece on the masculinity crisis in America, what prestige television tells us about lost men, and why Jennifer Siebel Newsom's war on masculine virtue looks a little different the morning after her party's front-runner quit a governor's race over rape allegations. And — Tom Pappert from the Tennessee Star (@RealTomPappert) is here for a tough love conversation about Rand Paul's 2028 presidential flirtation. We're both fans. We both think it's a bad idea. We'll tell you exactly why — and what we'd say to him if he called. ─────────────────────────────

67 Million Americans Don't Talk To Their Families Anymore, Canada Can't Write A Sentence, Disney Is Broke, And Uncle Sam Has Your Son's Address — Freedom Family Friday breaks down the stories every family needs to hear before the weekend. A stunning new poll reveals 38 percent of Americans are currently estranged from a family member and the generation doing the cutting has no plans to reconcile. Canada's federal government published an official national action plan with a 17-character acronym in the title -- and they built in an expansion clause. Disney just announced 1,000 more layoffs under a brand new CEO while the stock sits exactly where it was a decade ago. And Trump quietly signed a law in December that will automatically register every eligible young man in America into the military draft database by this December -- no form, no opt-in, no notice. Austin is joined today by Steffi and Justin for a full Freedom Family Friday breakdown.

A 170-POUND CHINESE ROBOT WITH SIX MICROPHONES AND A CAMERA WANTS TO MOVE INTO YOUR KITCHEN. WE HAVE QUESTIONS. Jonni Skinner was put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as a minor. Not one therapist asked why. At the other end of that pipeline is a young man who may never experience sexual function -- and a California legislature that heard every word of his testimony and advanced the bill seven to one. Meanwhile JD Vance just boarded a plane to Islamabad to end a war he privately told Trump was a bad idea, an AI model escaped its own containment and emailed its developer from a park, and Jennifer Siebel Newsom's resurfaced clips are torching Gavin Newsom's 2028 ambitions in real time. Austin Petersen breaks down the most important story in California politics, the JD Vance tightrope nobody is framing correctly, and what the Tucker Carlson implosion actually means for the conservative coalition. Camellia joins for a hard look at AI that is breaking its own rules and a Chinese home robot that maps your house in real time. And Maggie Anders is back in the chair to break down the Jennifer Siebel Newsom viral clips and the question every Republican strategist is asking: asset or liability?

Did Tucker Carlson spend fifteen years calling Islam an "Islamic cult" -- only to buy a house in Qatar, call Trump the Antichrist on Easter morning, and declare himself the moral guardian of religious decency? Trump called the New York Post directly. The verdict: "Low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what's going on." The receipts are spectacular and we have all of them. Meanwhile:

Here is your Rumble video description, ready to copy and paste. This Easter weekend, the U.S. military pulled off one of the most daring rescue operations in American history -- pulling a wounded Colonel out of a mountain crevice deep inside Iran after his F-15E was shot down. The CIA ran a fake convoy to confuse the IRGC. American attack aircraft bombed every Iranian search party that got close. Transport planes malfunctioned and were blown up on enemy soil rather than left behind. Seven hours over Iran. Not one American killed. And while all of this was happening -- the American left was posting recycled footage from the Butler assassination attempt and telling the world Trump was dying at Walter Reed. He was in the Oval Office the whole time. We break down every detail of the rescue, the Walter Reed hoax, Trump's legendary Easter morning Truth Social post, and the organized defeatism machine that has been wrong about America for fifty years -- and keeps getting funded anyway. Plus -- the American Enterprise Institute just dropped a bombshell report proving the middle class isn't dying. It's graduating. The upper middle class has tripled since 1979. We have the receipts and the story the doom-sellers don't want you to hear. GUESTS: Jon Miltimore -- Senior Editor, American Institute for Economic Research -- joins at 8AM Central on the middle class economic story. Tom Pappert -- Award-Winning Reporter, The Tennessee Star -- joins at 8:30AM Central on the defeatism industrial complex, the No Kings astroturf, and the Baghdad Bob media. SUPPORT THE SHOW: Join the 1776 Club -- $17.76/month keeps Wake Up America free and independent: wakeupamericashow.com/support BONUS CONTENT UNLOCKS TODAY: $100 -- Lego-style animated biopic of Samuel Adams. The original American rabble-rouser. Do not miss this. $150 -- The Great Grift Off LIVE -- our legendary game show where you play for real prizes from the Grift Shop. SHOP PATRIOT COFFEE AND GEAR: 4LibertyShop.com -- Founding Flavors coffee. Drink what freedom tastes like. JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Discord: 4libertyNetwork.com Rumble: rumble.com/ap4liberty #IranRescue #WakeUpAmerica #AustinPetersen #Trump #MiddleClass #NoKings #DefeatismIsOver #FoundingFlavors

Did Washington spend years nudging automakers to put an annoying feature into millions of cars nobody asked for, only to watch drivers file complaint after complaint while the constitutional fight underneath it grew even bigger than the dashboard button itself? The machine said trust the experts, trust the credits, trust the regulators. Now the feature is under fire, the legal foundation behind years of climate regulation is in the crosshairs, and the real question is no longer whether auto stop-start is annoying. It is who gets to engineer your choices in the first place. Meanwhile:

Justice Jackson's Stolen Wallet Speech Was a Gift to Trump Trump made history walking into SCOTUS while Justice Jackson compared birthright citizenship to stealing a wallet in Japan. Mayra Flores just lost her own Republican primary in a majority-Hispanic district and then told CPAC the GOP cannot survive without Hispanic voters. And eight million people hit the streets under the No Kings banner funded by Soros and organized alongside groups calling openly for revolution. Austin Petersen breaks down the biggest constitutional case in a generation, the Hispanic voter data every Republican needs before November, and why the party that uses the 14th Amendment to protect your gun rights cannot treat that same amendment as negotiable on citizenship.

Lead in the Dino Nuggets, Chinese Billionaires Buying American Babies, and the Decade We Threw Away — Freedom Family Friday breaks down the stories every family needs to hear before the weekend. A viral X post about the 90s opens a real conversation about what we traded away for smartphones and algorithms. A WSJ investigation reveals foreign billionaires are mass-producing U.S. citizen babies with zero federal oversight. The USDA just confirmed the dino nuggets in your freezer may have five times the safe lead limit for children and called it an "alert" instead of a recall. Gen Z is walking back into church and the media doesn't know what to do with that. And nearly 30 percent of Joe Rogan's audience is women — so why does everyone keep calling it the manosphere? Austin is joined today by Steffi and Justin for a full Freedom Family Friday breakdown.

KATHY HOCHUL TOLD THEM TO LEAVE. THEY LEFT. NOW SHE'S DRIVING TO PALM BEACH TO BEG THEM TO COME BACK. New York lost 238,000 residents and $13.7 billion in personal income -- and the governor who told Republicans to "get on a bus and head to Florida" is now asking Florida if she can have them back. Meanwhile, Missouri just voted 98-54 to abolish its state income tax entirely, becoming the first state in 45 years to seriously attempt what Albany insists is impossible. Two states. Two governing philosophies. One winner. Austin Petersen breaks down the greatest tax revolt in a generation, the MAGA civil war threatening the 2026 midterms, the national security bombshell that broke today, and why an American woman who built a show called Undoctrination has more to say about this country's founding than most people who take it for granted every single day.

AMERICA MOCKED THE TRADES FOR THIRTY YEARS -- NOW IT'S PANICKING. This week Mike Rowe put the crisis in plain English: America told an entire generation that working with your hands was a consolation prize, and now the country is running out of the people who actually know how to build, wire, weld, fix, and keep civilization running. While college grads drown in debt and job applications, young electricians are making serious money, getting poached by multiple companies, and becoming some of the most valuable workers in the country. Austin Petersen breaks down Mike Rowe's viral warning, the collapse of the four-year degree myth, and why America's ruling class is suddenly throwing money at the very workers it spent decades looking down on.

JAPAN WANTS TO JOIN OUR BBQ -- AND IT JUST CHANGED EVERYTHING. This weekend a Japanese man posted seven words on X: "I like this photo of American men and meat." Hundreds of Americans invited him to their backyard cookouts within hours. What followed was one of the most extraordinary cross-cultural moments the internet has ever produced -- and the mainstream media completely missed what it actually meant. Austin Petersen breaks down the story that went viral this weekend and connects it to something much bigger than barbecue.

What happens when elite feminism sneers at stay-at-home motherhood, the modern workday starts dissolving into chaos, global travel starts sounding like a national security briefing, and colleges have to drag students back into face-to-face testing just to find out whether they actually know anything? On tomorrow's Family Freedom Friday edition of Wake Up America, Austin Petersen breaks down the stories exposing the deeper fight over family, freedom, work, education, faith, and cultural authority in America right now. From Sheryl Sandberg attacking the tradwife trend, to the rise of “microshifting” and the collapse of the normal workday, to travel warnings that make spring vacation sound like a geopolitical calculation, this show asks a bigger question: are the institutions running modern life actually making people freer, safer, and stronger, or just more anxious, more managed, and more dependent? Then we get into the education and culture stories that say even more about where the country is headed: colleges turning back to oral exams because AI has made written work suspect, Peter Thiel drawing heat in Rome with his Antichrist lectures near the Vatican, and NYU replacing live student commencement speeches with pre-recorded videos after years of controversy over unscripted remarks. It is a packed show about control, competence, tradition, and what happens when the people in charge stop trusting the public, the students, the workers, and even the families they claim to serve.

CANADA does not just get offended. It becomes the perfect test case for what MAGA actually believes about trade, leverage, alliances, and whether America should keep subsidizing old arrangements forever. What starts with tariffs, “51st state” taunts, hockey nationalism, and the “Elbows Up” backlash turns into something much bigger: a fight over whether Trump is wrecking the alliance system or forcing a long-overdue repricing of it. That is not just a Canada story. It is the clearest window yet into the emotional and political logic of America First. Austin Petersen opens with the MAGA-vs-Canada clash, why “Elbows Up” became a Canadian rallying cry, and why Trump's defenders see the entire fight as a revolt against allied entitlement, burden-shifting, and one-sided expectations. Then the show turns back home, where Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker's rideshare tax proposal becomes the latest case study in blue-city shell games: tax the middleman, swear the company pays, and somehow the bill still lands on the person just trying to get to work, the doctor, or the airport. Then Camellia Peterson joins the show for a conversation about the increasingly unhinged world of supplement stacks, where wellness culture, influencer economics, and health anxiety collide. And Austin closes with a tour through the left-wing grift museum, where nonprofits, activists, and politically protected operators keep turning moral prestige into criminal allegations and cash. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

JOE KENT does not just resign. He detonates a political and moral bomb inside the America First movement. The former National Counterterrorism Center director walks away from the Trump administration, denies leaking classified information while reportedly under FBI investigation, publicly casts doubt on the official narrative around Charlie Kirk's assassination, and says he would testify even if it helps Tyler Robinson's defense. That is not just a personnel story. That is a crisis of loyalty, judgment, and truth inside the movement that claims Charlie as a martyr. Austin Petersen breaks down the full Joe Kent controversy, the legal and political implications of Kent's remarks, and the deeper question nobody wants to answer: when does “just asking questions” start helping the other side? Plus, Judge Andrew Napolitano joins the program to connect Kent's resignation to the administration's case for war with Iran, and Georgia state Rep. Noelle Kahaian joins us from the Gold Dome on the push to keep roads clear for first responders and to finally end the clock-changing insanity. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

New York City did not just elect a socialist mayor. It elected a mayor whose personal and political world is now colliding head-on with questions about extremism, judgment, and ideological rot. Zohran Mamdani sold voters on affordability, cool aesthetics, and a new progressive future. What they got instead is a city facing a multibillion-dollar fiscal hole, a mayor struggling to deliver his promises, and a mounting controversy over his wife's social media activity and radical associations that City Hall cannot explain away forever. Austin Petersen breaks down the full Mamdani story — from the budget fantasy to the political liabilities inside his own orbit — plus the airport chaos that ended with ICE agents stepping into major U.S. airports as TSA staffing buckled, the Democrats' bizarre new obsession with “hotter candidates,” and a tribute to Chuck Norris that separates the real man from the media caricature. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hasan Piker's $1,383 Glasses & Code Pink's 5-Star Cuba Vacation EXPOSED | Wake Up America with Austin Petersen | March 23, 2026 650 left-wing activists just flew to Cuba on a "humanitarian mission" and checked into a five-star hotel — the only building on the island with electricity — while 11 million Cubans sat in 20-hour blackouts outside. Code Pink flew first class. Hasan Piker wore $1,383 Cartier sunglasses to a country where people earn $17 a month. Greta Thunberg — who called fossil fuels a "death sentence" in 2023 — is now demanding oil tankers be sent to Cuba. And a Chinese Communist Party-linked network funded the whole operation. Austin Petersen delivers the most comprehensive takedown of left-wing hypocrisy in recent memory — plus the secret JFK deal that kept the Cuban regime breathing for 64 years, the NBC poll showing the Democratic Party now polls worse than ICE and AI, and why the libertarian wave sweeping Latin America is the biggest story nobody in mainstream media is covering. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

On today's Wake Up America, we open with the story that perfectly captures everything wrong with the American Left: New York Governor Kathy Hochul stood at a podium and begged millionaires to come home after her state spent years taxing them out of it. New York has lost $111 billion in net income to migration over the last decade. 1,700 millionaires changed their address in 2024 alone. The city faces a $12 billion budget hole. And Hochul's solution is to ask Trump to go to Palm Beach and "bring them back." Then Austin turns to the biggest broken promise in recent political memory -- DOGE. The chainsaw. The $2 trillion. The 28-year-old who used ChatGPT to cancel DEI And the one man in Argentina who actually did what DOGE promised -- and proved you can't cut government by firing people. You have to change what the government is authorized to do.

This morning, we're taking on elite incompetence from every angle. First, the Jones Act fight takes center stage as Trump weighs a waiver while the Iran war pushes gas prices higher and exposes just how weak America's protected shipping system really is. And later, the failed fear politics of Paul Ehrlich get the reckoning they deserve. The Population Bomb mindset taught the West to fear children, fear growth, and fear the future itself. The predictions failed. The panic did not. Then it's the TSA mess, where unpaid security workers, airport disruptions, and Kristi Noem's DHS spin machine are colliding in real time. Is this just another congressional food fight, or proof that Noem can do TV better than she can run a department? In the second half, Cuba is back in the dark. Mailyn Salabarria joins the show to break down the blackouts, the regime's talks with Washington, and why the socialist fantasy keeps crashing into reality. ⛽ TRUMP'S JONES ACT GAMBLE: Why the Iran oil shock is exposing one of America's dumbest and most overrated shipping laws.

This morning, we're pulling back the curtain on the industry that has been selling America monsters since 1967 -- and making billions doing it. First, the conspiracy racket gets the full autopsy. From the man who faked Bigfoot in a California riverbed to the goat gland doctor who killed 42 patients on a hundred-dollar diploma, to Alex Jones moving $165 million in supplements by preaching apocalypse -- we follow the money, name the names, and explain exactly how fear becomes a product. Then it gets darker. Henry Ford built the most dangerous conspiracy machine in American history, put his name on it, distributed it through every Ford dealership in the country, and watched it get quoted in Mein Kampf. We trace the direct line from the Dearborn Independent to the grifters running the same playbook today -- and we explain why the water slide got reopened, who benefits from where it exits now, and why the people selling you conspiracy content are not your friends. And then the biggest breaking story of the day. Joe Kent -- eleven combat deployments, Trump's own Senate-confirmed counterterrorism director -- resigned this morning and went on record. His letter says Iran posed no imminent threat and that this war was driven by Israeli pressure. The White House says he was a known leaker who was about to be fired anyway. Judge Andrew Napolitano joins the show to break down the law, the war powers, and who is telling the truth.

TRUMP'S TRAP: Why Tucker Carlson is Facing a CIA Criminal Referral The Jester has been unmasked.

What happens when a tech CEO says the quiet part out loud, the culture forgets how to write, and celebrity obsession keeps swallowing public attention? On today's Wake Up America, Austin Petersen breaks down what these stories reveal about the country at this moment: Alex Karp's blunt comments about power, politics, and the future of AI, the strange collapse of grammar and basic written communication, and the bizarre grip pop culture still has on a distracted public. At the center of it all is a bigger question: what kind of society are we building when the machines get smarter, the elites get blunter, and the culture gets less capable of clear thought? From Palantir and Alex Karp to the decline of written language and the Timothée Chalamet fixation, tomorrow's show ties together technology, competence, class, and cultural decay in one sharp look at where America is heading.

Trump's clash with Thomas Massie is more than a feud. On today's Wake Up America, Austin Petersen breaks down whether the MAGA movement still believes in constitutional restraint when war powers, foreign policy, and internal power struggles collide. Then the show widens out into the next big question on the Right: JD Vance vs. Marco Rubio in 2028, the surveillance fight over Section 702, and the ideological battle over Alexander Dugin, anti-globalism, and the future of the American Right.

Austin Petersen breaks down a strange but revealing day in politics and culture, from the international fight over Iran's women's soccer team to the GOP's real midterm warning signs to the very American drama over emojis and what they say about modern political softness. This episode of Wake Up America connects the global story, the electoral story, and the cultural story without losing the facts. If you want a sharper read on Iran, the 2026 midterms, emoji controversy, and what Republicans may be missing, this is the show. ⚡ TOPICS COVERED

On this Tuesday, March 10 edition of Wake Up America, Austin Petersen breaks down a nation at a crossroads. From the terrifying federal charges unsealed against the ISIS-inspired bombers in New York City to the technological and financial revolutions shaping our future, we are diving deep into the fight for reality. While the "Government-God" bureaucrats fail to keep us safe, the private sector, autonomous technology, and prediction markets are providing the clarity the mainstream media refuses to give you. TOPICS COVERED

Austin Petersen and Stephanie kick off Freedom Family Friday with the culture stories everyone's arguing about: the “dating recession,” school phone bans, social media age limits, and why young people are increasingly skeptical about marriage. Then Justin joins and we dig into the biggest lightning-rod fights where institutions collide with parents, courts, and the arts world—starting with the Supreme Court showdown over California school policies. Topics Covered Today:

The world is watching as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz hit a breaking point. Austin Petersen breaks down why shipping insurance giants like Lloyd's of London are officially abandoning the Gulf, creating a maritime blockade that could send the global economy into a tailspin. While the geopolitical gears grind, Justice Neil Gorsuch is name-checking the Founding Fathers for their "habitual drinking" in a major Supreme Court showdown over marijuana rights. Plus, we're dissecting the "Dating Recession" and why Gen Z is officially "de-platforming" basic manners like phone calls and handshakes. Topics Covered in Today's Episode: