October 23rd, 2025

On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, there was a major FBI bust of an illegal sports betting scheme involving four NBA teams (Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Raptors) and four mafia families (Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese), netting over $7 million. The NBA Has a problem, people need to have faith in the game. This is a massive blackeye for the NBA. Also, those who say that Israel will never annex the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), have no idea what’s taking place in the West Bank. Israel will do whatever it chooses to do. The recent Knesset vote on annexation was initiated by the left to divide conservatives and the administration. If Judea and Samaria don’t belong to the Jews, who does it belong to? Shiloh’s history proves Judea and Samaria as ancestral Jewish homeland is crucial to Judaism and Christianity. Later, Zohran Mamdani got his butt kicked at the NYC debate. He’s a sloganeer, which is typical of Marxists, but he won’t be substantive at all. Afterward, Obamacare is a lie focused on centralization and control rather than affordability, leading to loss of civil liberties, restricted benefits, and second-rate care where patients can’t access desired doctors, hospitals, or medicines. It’s just like socialist systems in Canada and Britain, from which people flee to the US for better care, yet Democrats aim to mimic them. Democrats caused the government shutdown to maintain and expand Obamacare subsidies and reinstate benefits for illegal aliens, refusing reforms and relying on media to blame Republicans, ultimately destroying Medicare, Medicaid, and employee insurance by inflating healthcare costs. Finally, a Daily Mail article predicts Christianity’s decline as America’s majority religion amid Islam’s rise. U.S. was founded on tolerant Judeo-Christian values fused with Enlightenment, rejected by Marxists and Islamists. This ideological clash threatens free society’s survival.

Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP

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Rough transcription of Hour 1

Segment 1
Hello America. Mark Levin here. Our number, 877-381-3811. 877-381-3811. I want to get into this betting scandal and there’s so much more to get into as well. So just hang in there three full hours. Three full hours. I just want you to know where I come down first of all on betting. I don’t believe in these quote unquote state run betting parlors, online betting. No, I like to play blackjack, I like to play poker. I like to do these other things in casinos where these things are really quite well monitored and so forth. I’m just not into the other. Which probably explains why they don’t advertise on this radio show, Mr. Producer. But I’m just not into it. I don’t know how it’s controlled. I’m sure, uh, there’d be pushback. It’s not really a debate I care to have. I’ll tell you what else I don’t believe in. I don’t believe in paying, uh, college athletes. I don’t believe in that either. It changes the whole nature of sports at the college level, but it changes. The whole nature of college. Well, Mark, the schools make a fortune. Well then don’t play. I mean that’s fine, but if you’re really good, uh, you’ll get a payday. But I really don’t like it. So in many ways now college sports is, I guess I would say professional sports is viewed as more, more important than college sports because not college sports are viewed as a way to feed professional sports. I just don’t like it, even though that does happen. So, um, I guess I’m a traditionalist, whatever you want to call me, but I’m not comfortable with either. Now all that said, I think the best way to start this, the uh New York Post here. And then we’ll get to uh, FBI Director Kash Patel and then we’ll get to the, uh, New York FBI Assistant Director Christopher Rye. But first, just to lay the foundation here, many of you watch football and baseball and basketball and hockey and UFC and all the rest. It doesn’t take much to poison sports. It was. He really doesn’t. A bombshell. Illegal sports betting scheme involving four NBA teams, four and four mafia crime families. Netted upwards of $7 million over two years, the FBI announced Thursday. Today in a historic bust, Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones among those indicted. And there’s been like 30 indicted in the stunning takedown. These are two separate illegal gambling related cases. 31 people including members of the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese mafia family. Sounds like old times Mr. Producer. And coaches and players from the Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors have been arrested in the scheme carried out between January 2022 and March 2024. New York City mafiosas allegedly used readily available online X ray poker table technology to cheat victims out of millions in a years long poker scheme. The scam involved rig tables with LEDs, contact lenses and barcode scanners to manipulate high stakes games across various cities. The genius of the criminal often is really incredible. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was was seen exiting via the back entrance following his arraignment in Orlando today. He’s 31. He’s accused of tipping off mobsters that he was exiting a 2023 game early with an injury prompting them to bet over 200,000 on the unders. First prop bets that game. There’s under, there’s over. You’re betting on a lot of things under and over that could mean the score of the game, uh, things of that sort. People bet on all kinds of stuff like what color socks the players are going to wear. Portland trailer players. Portland Trail Blazers players Head coach Chauncey Billups allegedly leaked insider info to gamblers identifying him as a co conspirator number eight in federal court documents. The scheme involved tipping a betting ring about his team’s plan to tank a game against the Chicago Bulls. Wow, that’s. That’s pretty heavy duty. Team’s gonna tank a game. Doesn’t mean all the team members were. Even aware of it by the way. Pretty incredible, Pretty outrageous. See here Billups also faces charges in a separate scheme involving fixed poker games with the mob. So this guy Billups was involved in both schemes. A reputed mobster, Thomas Gilardo, known as Tommy Juice has been charged in the FBI investigation in a multi million dollar rigged poker ring. He allegedly acted as muscle threatening victims to pay debts from fixed games that included former NBA players. He’s one of 31 people charged. Thirteen alleged mobsters including the son of Gambino captain and a Bonanno crime family member implicated in widespread gambling bust alongside NBA stars. The arrests reveal a high stakes operation involving rigged poker games and illicit proceeds benefiting various crime families. Key figures. This is New York post. Angelo Ruggiero Jr. And Ernest Ernie Aiello are among those accused. All right, I want you to hear from, uh, the FBI Director, Kash Patel. Cut 19. Please go. But as you now know, individuals such as Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones and Terry Rozier were taken into custody today. Former current NBA players and coaches. What you don’t know is that this is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years. The FBI led a coordinated takedown across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing. Not only did we crack into the fraud that these perpetrators committed on the grand stage of the NBA, but we also entered and executed a system of justice against La Casa Nostra to include the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families. And you’ll hear more about those details today. The charges and the arrests that were taken down across this country range from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, illegal gambling. This FBI will leave no room for any perpetrator of crime across this country. You hear a lot about our work of defending the homeland and crushing violent crime. Well, this work is also representative of a colossal portion of the FBI’s mandate to keep America safe and to keep our entertainment industry fair and secure. The men and women that are standing up here today worked tireless hours, days, months and years. And the fraud is mind boggling. It’s not hundreds of dollars, it’s not thousands of dollars, it’s not tens of thousands of dollars, it’s not even millions of dollars. We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi year investigation. Uh, and then there’s Christopher Rea, New York FBI assistant director. Cut 20. Go. Three of the named defendants are charged for their alleged roles in both schemes. This alleged illegal gambling operation hustled unwitting victims out of tens of millions of dollars and created a financial pipeline for La Cosa Nostra to help fund and facilitate their organized criminal activity. Victims were attracted to play alongside well known professional athletes and coaches like Chauncey Billups, only to be unknowingly deceived through rigged shuffling machines, fixing the odds in their favor as alleged. And as you just heard from the U.S. attorney’s office, this alleged scheme wreaked havoc across the nation, exploiting the notoriety of some and the wallets of many to fund the Italian crime families here in New York. Mhm. All right, well, that pretty much sums it up. Um, so our different talk show hosts. I’d be talking about this for three hours and repeating themselves. We’re not going to do that there’s too much going on. But the NBA has a problem. Maybe all sports has a problem, as far as I know, but certainly the NBA does. Uh, people have to have faith that these games are kosher, that they’re straight, uh, that there’s no influencing going on. And this is a, it’s just a massive black eye to the NBA. I don’t blame the commissioner. I don’t blame anybody. I’m just saying the individuals have created a huge problem and the industry is going to have to figure out how to deal with it. I’ll be right back.

Segment 2
You know, sometimes I decide things on the fly here, and we always try to provide some context, certainly from my views and my opinions, but context for you, because there are things I know you’ve never been exposed to, the nature of the public, uh, school system, no matter your age, especially today, but generally many aspects of Jewish history that Jews are not familiar with. Many aspects of Christian history that Christians aren’t familiar with. Same with Muslims. Same with our own history, American history. And I want to talk to you briefly. I’ve mentioned this place many times on this program about Shiloh, spelled Shiloh. S H I L O H. Can assure you that the vast majority of people in the United States, politicians as well, who say that Israel will never annex, uh, the west bank, have no idea what’s taking place in the West Bank. I would also say this Israel will do whatever it chooses to do. Maybe not now. Timing could be bad. Maybe not with our current president or vice president. You’re talking about an area of the world, people, holy sites that are 4,000 years old. The fight the president talks about that’s 3,000 years old predates anything called a, uh, Palestinian. That name was invented in 1965 by Arafat, an Egyptian. What he’s talking about, I believe, is the attacks on the Jews by the Babylonians, by the Persians, who were not Arabs, by the Romans, who were not Arabs, and so forth and so on. What’s been going on for 3,000 years, probably longer, is the effort to exterminate the Jews. That’s what’s been going on. There’s not been a battle between the Israelis and Hamas or the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. They never existed. They’re not in your Bible. They’re not in the Koran. They’re nowhere their concoction. But I want to get into this a little bit because you’re going to hear people say that the Israelis will not annex, uh, Judea and Samaria, which they call the West Bank. Uh, the timing on this was really problematic. And it wasn’t the Conservatives, the Likud Party, the, that brought this up to vote on this. It was the left, the left in the Knesset. They did that to try and create a wedge between the Prime Minister and the more conservative parties, Likud and others, and the administration which says, you’re not going to annex, quote, unquote, the west bank on our watch. But the Jews in the Middle east know something, like the Chinese in Far East Asia know something. The world doesn’t begin and end in a period of a few years, a period of a few decades, or a period of a few centuries. If Judea and Syria don’t belong Judea and Samaria don’t belong to the Jews, who does it belong to? Uh, now we are very mindful of our own boundaries and borders. We are very mindful of our own sovereignty. We would never tolerate another country, a group of countries, telling us, for instance, Hawaii does not belong to you. Why did you annex Hawaii? Mhm. Puerto Rico is a territory that doesn’t belong to you. You just grabbed it. Right? We’d say, why don’t you go screw yourself? In fact, we talk about acquiring Greenland. Greenland’s never been ours. We don’t have any historical connection to Greenland at all. But it’s a national security issue, isn’t it? Panama has never been ours. But we built the Panama Canal there, right? What about Guam? We won Guam in World War II. Does that belong to us? And I go down the line and I only do this to apply the logic to us and to other countries. Right? That’s why you have movements in this country, mostly radical left wing movements, mostly racist movements that say the United States altogether doesn’t belong to the white Europeans who came here, whether it’s the Vikings or whether it’s Columbus or whatever it is, that there were people who were here before and even before the Native Americans, Indians, people talk about the Aztecs or people related to the Aztecs from Central America. I don’t have any idea. I don’t really care. This is America and that’s the way it’s going to be, Right? There’s not a single Arab country that. Has a claim to Judea or Samaria. None. The Palestinians make a claim to it and their claim is a joke. It’s a lie. Make it a little louder, Mr. Producer. All right, we’ll be right back.

Segment 3
Some of our history here, ladies and gentlemen. All of ours goes way, way back. This is from Chabad.org Chabad.org when the Israelites settled the land during the days of Joshua, Shiloh was chosen as the site for the tabernacle that traversed the desert for 40 years. There, the temporary boards that surrounded the structure were replaced with stone walls, giving the building a degree of permanence. The only place that the House of God and the Holy Ark ever enjoyed this degree of stability was in Jerusalem. It’s evident from several of the biblical narratives that Shiloh served as a national location. Its centrality cannot be overstated. Here are some. When the Israelites met to apportion the land for the seven remaining tribes they gathered at Shiloh, it was Shiloh that the Levites came to demand their assigned cities. The tribes of Gad and Reuben departed from Shiloh to their territory on the eastern side of the Jordan. When the Israelites sent a delegation to confront the tribes of Gad and Reuben for establishing a grand altar by the Jordan, the group left from Shiloh. These and similar events occurred during the early years of the Israelite settlement in the land. Talking about thousands and thousands of years ago, skipping forward several hundred years, Eli. The high priest, served with distinction in Shiloh as a spiritual leader for the Israelites. People traveled significant distances to make their pilgrimage to Shiloh, which is how we famously encounter Ekena and Chana. Chana’s heartfelt prayer for offspring at the temple of Shiloh. It’s one of the most famous ever uttered, the son she was finally blessed with, who grew up to become the great prophet Samuel. Now, those of you who read the Bible, you know who Samuel is, was brought to Shiloh. It’s a child raised there by Eli. It was from the Temple of Shiloh that the Ark of the Covenant was carried into war against the Philistines who captured it. When the word of the Ark’s capture was brought back to Eli in Shiloh, he fell back off his chair and he died. Some claim to have identified the exact spot where Eli would sit and where he met his death. The departure of the Ark from Shelah was highly significant, as it did not return home from around 60 years when David brought it to Jerusalem. David would become King David. Even generations after the temple at Shiloh no longer stood, the city continued to be associated with significant historical events. The prophet Achaiah of Shiloh warned that the kingdom ruled by Solomon, that would be King David’s son now King Solomon, would be split into two. He was the key prophet when the king of Israel split from the kingdom of Judah, vociferously condemned the idol worship that was rampant at the time. The book of Jeremiah tells of the murder of a delegation to the Jewish leader of Judea, Gadiah Ben Achaman, after the Babylonian conquest, some of whom were from Shiloh. We also read how Jeremiah, descendant of Eli, greatly lamented the destruction at Shiloh, an event clearly seared in the nation’s memory many hundreds of years later. The tomitic, uh, era Shiloh hosted a house of study, and the Talmudic literature cites the conduct and teachings of the. Shilonites, the people who lived at Shiloh. Even centuries after there had been a temple there, the halo of holiness remained. This is how we may understand the report from the illustrious Rabbi Joshua ben Gorsha, a leading 2nd century sage who cited the words of an elder. Once I went to Shiloh, where I smelled the aroma of incense from the temple, which had stood a thousand years earlier, emanating from its walls. This is ancient, ancient history. So what happened to Sheila? One of the most important places in Jewish history. And where is Shelah, Mr. Producer? It’s in Samaria, what we Westerners call the West Bank. The west bank of what? The west bank of Jordan. Let me continue. But why are we not told what occurred? What happened to this city? After all, this was a place of immense sacredness for the better part of four centuries. Indeed, the termination of Shiloh led to 60 years in which the Holy Ark of the Covenant lacked a proper home. The Ark of the Covenant. Those of you who watch movies, you at least know that lacked a proper home. And the Israelites lacked a true national place of worship. The loss of Shelah was massive. Yet we’re left guessing what happened. Shouldn’t we be informed about an event of such magnitude? Perhaps even more difficult to understand is why there’s no day of commemoration or mourning for the loss of the temple at Shiloh. Each year on the 9th of Av, the Jewish people have a fast to observe the destruction of the two holy temples in Jerusalem. The 9th of Av is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar during which Jews sit on the ground and weep, mourn the falling of Jerusalem and the demolition of God’s sanctuary. So what is the day that we mark the destruction of the temple in Shiloh? If they’re standing for an entire 369 years. There isn’t one. Why there should be. Be nice if there was a simple answer to how and why this happened. Some take the view that if the Bible doesn’t state that the temple in Shelah was destroyed, it suggests it wasn’t. So what happened? We know from the book of Samuel, 1 Samuel that the Ark of the Covenant was taken into a decisive, uh, battle and captured by the Philistines. If the ark was removed, it’s reasonable to say the temple was taken apart and re established elsewhere. According to this view, the temple in Shiloh was never destroyed but dismantled. Another view is the temple was destroyed, but not through an act of violence by the Philistines. Rather, as the ark was captured and the temple was defiled, it lost its sanctity. It then became permissible for people to use the materials from the structure for their own mundane purposes. The most common rabbinic view is that the temple in Shiloh was indeed destroyed. These sources refer to the destruction of Shiloh in the same vein that they refer to the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem. Some go so far as to claim explicitly the temple was burned to the ground, as were the temples in Jerusalem. And recently, archaeologists found evidence of a terrible fire in Shiloh around the time the temple stood, which fits the narrative that it was attacked. From the words of the prophet Jeremiah scorn to Eli, the high priest, the religious leader who presided over the sanctuary in Shiloh for 40 years, it seems clear something rather bad was involved in Shiloh’s demise. And warning about the looming fate of Jerusalem, he has these stern words of for go now to my place, that is, in Shiloh, where I caused my name to rest at first and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. Likewise, the Book of Psalms hints at dark times when God abandoned his dwelling in Shiloh. The psalmist portrays an occasional replete with swords, fire and loss. It certainly gives the impression that something terrible happened. The Talmudic literature likewise makes several references to the destruction of Shiloh. The Rebbe, the great Chabad rabbi, offers a key insight that helps greatly in unraveling this mystery. It draws an important distinction between the houses of God in Shiloh. In Jerusalem, the structures in Jerusalem were temples where Shiloh and the portable sanctuary the Israelites had during their sojourn in the desert were tabernacles. While the temples in Jerusalem are repeatedly referred to as house, a house, the place of worship erected in Shiloh is described as a tent. A tent. Similarly, the Bible calls the portable sanctuary in the desert a tent no less than 106 times. What’s the difference? Turns out the distinction is significant. Temple, like a house, is designed to be permanent. A tabernacle, like a tent, is inherently intended to be temporary. House would only be destroyed if something went terribly wrong. A tent, on the other hand, would be taken down when it’s no longer used. When a house is taken down, it’s a big deal. When a tent gets taken down, it’s nothing significant because it was never meant to be permanent. That, says the Rebbe, is why the reason given for the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem was because of our sins and due to the sins of Israel. Without a, uh, clear reason, a permanent structure would be expected to remain standing if instead it was destroyed. This calls for an explanation. On the other hand, the tabernacle and Shiloh came down does not demand an explanation, as it was only ever intended to stand on a temporary basis. And it goes on. Tremendous. The history goes on. Now, uh, why am I reading this to you? What? Why is Mark reading this to you tonight? Because we have had declarations made by our president, our secretary of state, and our vice president involving this part of the world, Judea and Samaria. Judea and Samaria are crucially important to the people of the Jewish faith. And they’re also crucially important to the people of the Christian faith, because out of the Jewish faith grew the Christian faith. If there had been no Shiloh, there would have been no Judaism. There had been no Jerusalem, there would have been no Judaism. And so who does this area belong to? Why do we keep calling it the West Bank? The west bank of what? In 1948, after that area, the world was divided by the British. Israel was attacked by the surrounding Arab nations that would not accept the existence of the Jewish state. And yet the Jewish people are, uh mentioned in the Bible thousands of years ago that this is their home. Who declared it their home? Mr. Producer? God Himself. God himself. Who’s buried in Israel? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The matriarchs, too. You go to Israel today, you will see these holy sites. You will see this, this holy land. You will see Shiloh. The Palestinians say that Shiloh belongs to them. In 1948, the Jordanians, among the countries, the Arab countries that attacked Israel, took Judea and Samaria from the Jewish people, took it militarily, called it the west bank of Jordan, transjordan. And since 1948, it’s been called the West Bank. American politicians called the West Bank. Republicans and Democrats called the west bank the west bank of Jordan, like it all began in 1948. Really. The most ancient area, one of them certainly on the face of the earth, where we can actually track back who was where and when. Now timing is everything. There is no question about that. Things cannot be changed with a snap of a finger, just a vote of a legislature and so forth and so on. I understand that it is a dicey situation now. President is trying to enforce his peace deal. It won’t work, I think, unless they destroy Hamas. But that’s just one man’s opinion. And they argue, they’re working towards that. That’s a good thing. And so I encourage it, I support it, I celebrate it. But whether it’s the president, the vice president, the Secretary of State, whether it’s the leader of any Western country, or the monarch or the military dictator of any Arab country, Muslim country, you declare that Israel will not annex Judea and Samaria. Read the Bible. How do you annex, uh, land that’s always belong to you? What does that mean, to annex it? It’s a weird word in my view. Just one man’s opinion. Very weird. When we can trace back that this is the ancestral homeland of the Jews, not just in the Bible, but in man’s history. The physical evidence there, the written evidence. Is there, it’s all there. So, uh, while this is a bad time to push that issue, I agree with that. Bad time. The fact is that one day it will happen in the Jewish faith and the Christian faith and these other countries have no claim to it whatsoever. 0mhm. I’ll be right back.

Segment 4
So, a reporter asked Caroline, uh, Levitt today, the president’s affinity for building things and uh, his support of Israel, will he be building the Third Temple? That’s funny. I just wanted to give you folks some historical perspective. We’re not just talking about a piece of land, commercial land to develop land, and that’s that sort of thing. Gaza belonged, um, to the Jews. They gave it to the Palestinians. Recent history. And you see what’s happened to that. Um, and so if you haven’t been to Israel, I would encourage you to do it one day. Uh, it’s very spiritual. You don’t have to be a fundamentalist, you don’t have to even be a believer. But I think you’re going to find it both incredible from a religious perspective and a historical perspective. And it brings to life what you’ve heard or what you’ve read. It brings it to life because it’s real. It’s the real deal. Um, and that’s why those people aren’t going anywhere. They’ve been chased out. Many times we talked about the, um temple Mount. That one location right there in Jerusalem, the holiest site for the Jews. That’s where the first temple was built and the second temple was built. The second temple, as you know, was destroyed by the Romans. They estimate over a million Jews were murdered. Um, many of them, thousands of them were killed as Jesus was killed on a cross with their hands and feet nailed to the wood. And the stories are it was so bad that they literally ran out of trees. But people were slaughtered in the most horrendous ways, like Isis slaughters people. The Romans were brutal, and while they were out, the Jews forced out. You know, there was Judaism, Christianity, then the third religion, Islamic. And they built their temple. On the holiest site of the Jews for a reason. And, um, we talk about that today. M so really, the Jewish people have been pretty restrained in what they’ve been doing and what’s been done to them. Christian people more so even with Bethlehem now being taken over by the Palestinians, the birthplace of Jesus, which really upsets me. And I’m not Christian, but it upsets me a lot. You know, some of America’s most cherished values are being attacked. Faith, family, freedom. Our, uh, country. I’ll be right back.

October 23rd, 2025

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