Mid-Day Update： October 23, 2025
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
166.89084
Summary
A government shutdown that has now entered its 23rd day continues to rage on, and Democratic leaders continue to block a Republican-led bill that would have provided a short-term fix to reopen the government through November 21st. Meanwhile, the FBI continues to investigate a massive sports gambling ring.
Transcript
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Hello everybody, I'm John Fawcett with this Great America Show midday update for Thursday, October 23rd.
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Essential workers are being left unpaid after Senate Democrats kill another bill.
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That's right, the Democrats are at it again, blocking a Republican-led attempt to provide,
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are you ready for this, folks, essential government workers with paychecks
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amid this ongoing 23-day Chuck Schumer government shutdown,
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calling the bill overly selective and incomplete.
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That bill proposed by Senators Ron Johnson and Todd Young of Indiana
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failed in a 54-45 vote, where 60 votes were needed to advance the bill over the threat of a filibuster.
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Only three Democrats, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Raphael Warnock, and John Ossoff of Georgia,
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Now, it's worth noting Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff are up for re-election in the Georgia Senate,
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where they may not hold their seats, so I guess they're trying to play it safe, see what happens.
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Now, in addition to compensating federal employees and military personnel during the current shutdown,
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the bill would also extend relief to future instances where funding bills aren't in effect.
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Get this, folks, essential federal employees have been asked to continue working
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since the government entered shutdown on October 1st,
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after lawmakers failed to pass their spending legislation to begin the 2026 fiscal year.
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Republicans have advanced a short-term spending extension that would open the government through November 21st.
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Democrats have repeatedly rejected that proposal, though,
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demanding that Congress first consider an extension to the expiring COVID-19 supplemental funding
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Yeah, we're in 2026, and they still want the COVID-era supplemental funding for Obamacare.
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Republicans who maintain that health insurance subsidies are unrelated to the government's short-term funding needs
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Democrats in the Senate have voted now 12 times to defeat the stopgap bill.
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The shutdown looks poised to continue with no resolution in sight,
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prompting lawmakers to worry about key areas they feel shutdowns will be affected more acutely.
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You know, things like our air traffic controllers,
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the people who are guiding planes to take off and land,
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Those folks who aren't making millions of dollars a year,
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who are now being forced to go out and get supplemental jobs
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and then go to work the next day exhausted and tired,
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Yeah, those are the folks that the Democrats don't care about paying.
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As I say, folks, the Marxist Dems don't give a damn about each and every one of us.
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Speaking of the Marxist Dems and their corruption,
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the Democrat National Committee, more commonly referred to as the DNC,
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is still struggling to repay Kamala Harris's campaign debt
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The amazing thing about it is that it's a reminder that the Harris campaign
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had a war chest of more than a billion dollars.
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and yet she still lost and still incurred millions of dollars in campaign debt.
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I guess it's really a testament to what absolutely awful candidate she was,
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she'll probably be torpedoed by the Democrat voters during the primary,
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Harris's campaign still millions of dollars in debt.
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She made a handshake deal with the National Party after Donald Trump defeated her,
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under which the DNC agreed to cover over $20 million
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in campaign expenditures and outstanding bills.
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Democrats can't even pay their own personal bills,
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yet they want to talk about funding governments and budgets there.
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Maybe they should take care of their own budgets first.
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FBI Director Cash Patel this morning announcing the arrest of more than 30 people across 11 states,
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including NBA Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups,
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who was the head coach last night for the Trailblazers in their loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves,
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who was on the bench last night in their game against the Orlando Magic,
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They were arrested as part of a takedown of a massive sports gambling ring,
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which included a poker scheme and a sports rigging operation.
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Now, I play a lot of poker, and I have never heard of this before,
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because it's absolutely like 25th century technology.
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The poker scheme is an X-ray table to read cards face down,
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wireless devices, and chip tray analyzers all tied to the Italian mafia La Cosa Nostra.
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U.S. Attorney Joseph Nacella said they used self-shuffling machines
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that had been secretly altered in order to read the cards in the deck,
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predict which players at the table had the best poker hand,
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and relay that information to an off-site operator.
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Defendants use other cheating technologies, such as poker chip tray analyzers,
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which is a poker chip tray that secretly reads cards using a hidden camera,
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special contact lenses or eyeglasses that can read pre-marked cards,
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and as I said, that X-ray table that can read cards face down on the table.
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The Bonamo, Gambino, and Lucchese and Genovese crime families,
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those are names of the past, folks, also involved.
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Terry Rozier allegedly used an insider NBA information scheme
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Terry Rozier, that NBA player for the Miami Heat,
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also faked an injury to leave a game reportedly early
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to make sure the bets paid out, hitting the under.
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but I think each and every one of us who have watched sports over the last few years
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have realized things have seemed a little strange, at least myself.
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Folks, please be sure to join us tonight, 6 p.m. Eastern time,
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6 p.m. Eastern time for The Great America Show.
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