Mandy’s Book “Y’all Fired” Describes Needed Reforms to Quash Deep State

Bianca De La Garza: [00:00:00] Hi, everybody. I’m Bianca De La Garza, and you have to check out Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots TruthCast podcast. I was a guest. He has the best guests. Always check him out.

With breaking news and political commentary from a public servant, serial entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist, and American patriot, and a darn nice guy, it’s time for the GrassRoots TruthCast, and your host, Gene Valentino.

Gene Valentino: Hi friends, Gene Valentino. Welcome to another episode of Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots Truth Cast. I’m with Mandy Gunasekara former Trump, EPA Chief of Staff, and a whole lot more to share with Mandy with our audience. Hello, Mandy.

Mandy Gunasekara: Hey, Gene. It’s great to be with you. And great to be with you folks.

Gene Valentino: Mandy’s background is quite, um, [00:01:00] interesting. Let’s put it that way. And we’re going to delve into many aspects of this. that she’s had with the Trump administration, her, uh, her law background and her work with, um, many environmental initiatives throughout the state and the nation right after this.

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Gene Valentino: hi friends. Welcome back to GrassRoots TruthCast. My guest today is Mandy Gunasekara, a Mississippi native, uh, a JD in law, and she has been working under the Trump administration as chief of staff in the, uh, environmental areas. Mandy, welcome aboard.

Let’s hear more about your background real quick. And then I have a. Something I just don’t understand. I’ve got to ask you.

Mandy Gunasekara: I have a sense. I know where that’s going, but yeah, let me start with the easy stuff. So, uh, I grew up military brat actually and, uh, ended up. Coming home to a small town called Decatur, Mississippi, really spent my formidable years there.

Ended [00:03:00] up going to Mississippi College for undergraduate, um, Ole Miss for law. And then throughout my undergraduate, I had done a number of internships in Washington, D. C. I really wanted to come up and be a part of all the constitutional republic action, um, as I characterized it back then. And, um, Found my way up into D.

1. after law school with my husband, and I worked in the U. S. House of Representatives, the U. S. Senate in various roles, really honed in and developed an expertise in the environment and the intersection of energy development, which is obviously necessary for modern life as we know it, um, how to maintain important protections to the environment, And what that actually does for the economy.

So that was sort of my trifecta of policy experience. Now, right before president Trump was elected, um, I had served as the majority counsel at the U S Senate environment and public works committee. And what was important about [00:04:00] this, it ended up being the perfect segue for my first role at the Trump environmental protection agency.

I was charged with the then president Obama’s. climate action plan. I’m sure you paid attention and your listeners know this is when Obama took his so called pin and phone initiative and he amped it up and it’s because all of his policies famously failed in Washington D. C. through the congressional process because he couldn’t get the people and the voters behind it so he couldn’t even get his own senate controlled And house controlled majorities to get behind some of his initiatives, mainly his climate initiatives.

So he turned to the agencies and I had been charged with performing oversight of some of the most egregious regulatory violations slash regulations, most of them coming from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, things like. The Clean Power Plan, methane regulations, trying to force people into electric vehicles, really using permits as a [00:05:00] way to control development instead of just improving overall efficiencies.

And I did domestic and international. And so this got me a front row seat to a lot of the international negotiations that ultimately led to the 2015 signing of the Paris Climate Accord. So when President Trump won, I stayed in the Senate to get his first nominee for Administrator Scott Pruitt through the confirmation process.

As soon as he was confirmed, I jumped over to EPA and initially served in a more technical role in our Office of Air and Radiation, and after that ended up ultimately as Chief of Staff.

Gene Valentino: Many people don’t really realize just how environmental and eco sensitive, uh, Donald Trump is. What was this, what was this, uh, Obama, uh, initiative that was failing, pin and

Mandy Gunasekara: Pin and phone.

His pin and phone initiative. Remember, it was

Gene Valentino: Explain that.

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, so, after, and it It really came to a head. He tried to pass something called cap and trade [00:06:00] legislation. This was in 2009 2010. He was trying to put a price on carbon, and it failed to pass the Democrat controlled Senate. So when a lot of his initiatives like that had failed in Congress, he famously said to the media, well, I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone and he started using his pen and phone to apply pressure to administrative agencies.

They don’t have the ability to write the laws like Congress. They have the ability to implement the laws consistent with legal authority delegated explicitly to them by Congress. Nonetheless, The Obama administration got to work reimagining legal authority and EPA was the tip of the spear in their effort to try to restructure the economy by virtue of their climate change initiatives.

Gene Valentino: This is very interesting. I’ve never, I’ve, for many people, they think of Donald Trump in the context of being somewhat of an economist, somewhat [00:07:00] of an entrepreneur, uh, business, business, business, put the environment second. I must tell you, every time I hear him talk, it seems his, his economic development strategies Seemed to be more measured in the context of protecting environmental concerns as well. You see that to be so,

Mandy Gunasekara: absolutely. I mean, anytime I ever talked to him or any of my principals ever talked to him directly about the environment, he’s very clear. He always said that the, the direction of EPA under his watch was to clean up the air, clean up the water, address legacy pollution in the soils, and make our economy run more efficiently.

Now, when you focus on that. We actually went gangbusters when you look at how you measure environmental outputs in this country, a little bit of background in the U. S. Since 1970, the EPA has been tracking the presence of certain types of traditional pollutants and then more recently, um, overall greenhouse gas emissions coming from a [00:08:00] variety of sources.

However, you measure it during the Trump administration’s, the four years of the Trump administration, you wouldn’t have read this in the headlines, but we rolled back a number of unnecessary regulations. But when you look at the data with regards to how you measure environmental improvement established in the 1970s, so not something President Trump changed so that he would look good.

We continued to reduce pollutants in air, water, and air quality. We actually recharged this program called Superfund that had really been stalled out. It’s aimed at dealing with legacy pollution from that pre 1970s era when people were dumping all sorts of chemicals and things into the waters, polluting all over.

We really ramped that up and we continued to lead the world in overall, overall greenhouse gas emission reductions. So if you cared about the data, We got an A plus plus during the Trump administration, but if you listen to the media, they would constantly tell the people we had [00:09:00] a failing grade.

Gene Valentino: Folks, we’re talking with Mandy Gunasekara, a native from Mississippi, but very well, very much involved in the Trump administration, uh, in the EPA and environmental area.

And Mandy, I can’t let any time go by without asking you, what is this? I know you’re featuring it in your book, and I want to make sure we start plugging the book. Uh, what’s this about a. A, um, state department arranged German sex hotel that you were involved in. Yeah. I mean, that should be the salacious topic that leads the story.

No, I kind of got into some interesting stuff with your first, but I can’t let it go too far by, I mean, there’s something here. What’s going on.

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, it’s, it’s actually, it’s an unbelievable story, but it’s all true. So because of my work in the Senate and really my international work. I ended up being the point person, the architect of the Paris Accord withdrawal, that President Trump eventually announced in the summer of 2017.

Quick reminder, the Paris [00:10:00] Climate Accord was an agreement, um, where the U. S. basically sold out the U. S. economy and the workers while giving places like China and India a free pass. Um, this is all a part of this glint, this global climate cabal, uh, where the Obama administration had signed us up for a bad deal.

Trump comes in, says, we’re not doing that. We’re going to get out. But you may not be surprised when I came in, there were a lot of people at the White House initially. Um, I called them the Goldman Sachs crew, but they came in and they wanted to try to convince the president, despite what he had said to the voters, he wanted to try to convince the president to stay in.

So there are many months of back and forth, back and forth. Ultimately, the president. Landed where he always was, which we’re getting out. I’ve been a key staffer in that whole process. And as you can imagine, I got a lot of enemies in the deep state. Um, fast forward. President Trump, after we got out of the Paris Climate Accord, he had assigned a group of us to come up with a better deal, and he sent us to the next climate conference that year.

They hold [00:11:00] one every single year hosted by the U. N. In a certain nation. This year, it was held in Bonn, Germany, as a federal staffer or employee. There are teams of people that handle your logistics, how you fly, where you stay, the taxis, all those sorts of things. Me being a Senate staffer, I’ve done these international trips before.

I didn’t think twice about it. So I get to Bonn and there’s an entire delegation of over 120 folks, mind you, that I was finally a part of. Um, and I get there, it’s one of those trips, red flag number one, everything that could go wrong went wrong. Red flag number two, as the taxi’s taking us to our, our lodging, we’re going away from where the negotiations are.

We end up about 35 to 45 minutes on a good day away from where the actual negotiations are. Just to level set, typically I was within a 10 minute taxi ride or walking distance because you’re there to negotiate, not to see the countryside and beautiful as it was. That was red flag number two. [00:12:00] Red flag number three is I walk into the hotel.

And it just had weird vibes, as you can imagine. I get to my room, and I start looking around, and it’s me and one other female colleague out of the entire 120 plus person delegation. And I look around, and we are very clearly in a German sex hotel. And so I called her. We tried to find a way to get out of it.

We reported it back to the State Department. Um, and, and this had been set up by the consulate in Germany. So it’s not like it was a innocent mistake. This was very clearly a form of harassment and a message from all the people who were angry about me helping the president. Fulfill his promise to get out of the Paris Climate Accord.

It was a message that they were not only going to try to stop our policy directions, but they were going to try to demean, demoralize and discredit any of his appointees in the process. And this was, this was exhibit A.

Gene Valentino: Full time out right there. This is a good, uh, [00:13:00] it’s, it’s, it comes off as a salacious soundbite, but it’s truly, uh, much more pervasive.

Mandy, this is an example, and this is where the story should go. The Republican party, the Republican administrations. As compared to the Democrat Party and Democrat administrations. This is a demarcation. This is a clear distinction between how Democrats and Republicans behave. I challenge anyone watching us.

to come forward with evidence, and I’ll give you the time that’s due, uh, to present the alternative side. But would someone show me one case in point, one case in point, where the Republicans have pulled this kind of stunt? It’s certainly embarrassing to you, and for that I apologize. It’s not my fault, but in a sense it’s my problem.

Together we have worked so hard at trying to promote and protect this [00:14:00] constitutional republic and its future for our children and grandchildren, yet we find herself in a situation where bad behavior, you, people coming into office with, with doctorate degrees in various areas, are you, are not using it because they’re encumbered with this kind of bad behavior.

What say you?

Mandy Gunasekara: I say that’s exactly right. And I think that is a really important message here, not to be lost. Something that really shifted during the Trump administration is folks are familiar when someone’s nominated for a cabinet position or a principal position, they are subject to a higher level of public scrutiny by virtue of going through that process.

Typically, the people under them, whether it’s the chief of staff on down to, um, you know, the young gun. Um, you know, I, I, uh, I would say it’s not just the president. I think it’s the administrative assistant that someone fresh out of college getting their first job to work for the president. Typically, those people are not subject [00:15:00] to that same level of public scrutiny.

But all of that went out of the door during the Trump administration, you know, I, I. Everyone was on the receiving end of reporters and entire nonprofits digging through past tweets and social media. I actually, I call them my young guns, but these were young, really smart, um, ambitious kids that care about the country, the type that you want with young, vibrant energy coming in and administration to help get things done.

They, they really, they’re so important in the process. And some of them ended up being on the receiving end of investigations because one, they were really effective and two, they had upset the wrong bureaucrat that knew that they would never be held to account for creating problems in someone else’s life.

So they end up leaving a job. That pays 40 to 50, 000 a year, which isn’t a ton. If you’re living in DC, you’re a young kid, you have college debt. And then they’re having to rack up legal bills on top of this to defend against frivolous investigations. And this [00:16:00] happened across the entirety of the Trump administration.

And this was a major shift. From how traditionally, um, people who sign up to serve the president were treated.

Gene Valentino: How much time did Donald Trump have to get down? I’d say a few levels down to your level. And I say that respectfully to get down to your level and see some of those antics going on. He had so many things hitting him, a tsunami of issues that he needed to address, admittedly, in a broader sense for this nation.

But was he able to get down into firing? He all fired with that bad behavior?

Mandy Gunasekara: Well, no, unfortunately not. Um, and this is, this is one of those lessons learned. And this is also why if President Trump pulls it out and wins the presidential election, the deep state is scared to death. Um, I’ve seen article after article called it.

They’re trying to trump proof all [00:17:00] their operations. The truth is you can’t trump proof because it’s not about trump. It’s about, it’s about executive authority in anyone, whether you are a political appointee or a longterm civil servant. You serve at the pleasure of the president, and he or she, but he, has the authority to do something about it, and now he knows, he knows how to do it, and it takes a whole team of people, um, not just with the knowledge, but the learned wisdom of how to operate within the bureaucracies to make sure if people treat the bureaucracies the way they should be.

People poorly, not even a political versus nonpolitical level on a basic human level or a professional standard. If they violate those, there is a pathway to get them out. And this is why the deep state more than anyone is so scared of a Trump victory in the next couple of weeks.

Gene Valentino: I spoke to one of the elected, uh, appointed officials over in your neck of the woods in Mississippi.

Uh, uh, he ended up owning a few radio stations and becoming, The equivalent to what we call here a county [00:18:00] commissioner. I was county commissioner for two years, two terms here in Florida. And my biggest problem, Mandy, wasn’t that I couldn’t do the job, but that at times I found myself, uh, with some bad behavior around me that I had a micromanage or manage in some way, which really took me off my game.

In being able to get more done for the people who hired me, the voters. I see that Trump on a second term, if I can use the term, he’s going to do an enema on anybody who’s in the way, because, and I submit it’ll be several levels down, uh, to prevent this kind of bad behavior and to your point, yes, the deep state is, is, um, in trouble, but folks, we’re talking with Mandy Gunasekara, former chief of staff.

In the, uh, EPA, uh, under the former Trump administration. Hey, any word about coming back?

Mandy Gunasekara: Uh, well, there’s, there’s a lot of [00:19:00] interest. You know, I, I actually think I could be more helpful on the outside. And, uh, I, I left DC. I’ve got two young kids, um, and I want to be first and foremost in Oxford mama for the next few years. And then secondly, figure out how to help my president.

Gene Valentino: All right, well, let’s talk about some of the things. First of all, your book, y’all fired. Let’s get a plug out there for the book. Where can they get it? What’s the book about?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, so y’all fired a southern bells guide to restoring federalism and draining the swamp.

You can buy it. The easiest is either Amazon or Barnes and noble. Um, and yeah, You know, I would, I would describe it in three main sections. The first section is my anecdotal experience prominently featured is the German sex hotel, but there’s more to it just to kind of paint the picture. Everyone knows how president Trump has been on the receiving end of the deep state, but it’s important for them to know it didn’t just stop with the president or the vice president or cabinet officials.

It went deeper than that. So it’s, it’s, it’s focusing on that. The second [00:20:00] piece of it is, it’s a little wonky, but, um, I’m a creature of policy. So I have to go there. It’s a deep dive into a historical assessment of how did we get to this problem problem where the unelected bureaucrat rules the day in a constitutional Republic.

It’s insane, but it really goes back to two things. The highlight passage of the 16th and the 17th amendment, this is income tax and how we elect our senators. That really shifted some power dynamics from key point key protections from the state and to investing into the federal state into a capital that has continued to grow ever since as long as an assessment of the role of FDR’s new deal and then when the the trust the experts mentality overtook took so many different institutions including the judiciary up until recently when there was a knock on Chevron.

The third piece of it is, uh, is again, what, what do we do about it? Um, and there’s, [00:21:00] there’s a lot of structural and technical options that I recommend for the, for president.

Gene Valentino: It’s funny you mentioned Chevron. I’m an investor in Chevron and I, I see clearly that their stock has not moved in almost a year.

They’re involved in some litigation now that they just cannot seem to, uh, get out of. And I suspect that has something to do with, um, Uh, Chevron’s association with Trump and, uh, what the courts are trying to do to prevent Chevron from, from, uh, growing, uh, but let’s stay on the deep state because I’m reading two other books and I’m folks, I’m going to be reading y’all fired.

So make sure you look for it on Amazon. Um, but it’s consistent with two other books. I’m reading one is, um, Scott Walter’s book, Arabella, Arabella. Which talks about the deep state and the billions of dollars that went in one direction to promote, uh, uh, Democrats and social communist [00:22:00] Marxist ideologies of candidates, which we now see in Congress.

The other one is, um, Dr. Shea Bradley, uh, Farrell’s book, um, Uh, which is quite interesting, and she is talking about Marxism and communism as it pertains to, uh, uh, uh, Victor Erban, uh, over in, uh, Hungary, and the, the two areas, they staved off the threat of communism there, and are quite, very much a democrat republic amidst a lot of socialistic thinkings in the EU, uh, what I’m getting at is here’s your book now espousing the same issue, uh, We’re talking about what I think is the biggest enemy to America, and that is the deep state initiative of a takeover of our, of our constitutional republic through a mechanism of, through a manner of eating from within.

It’s not the nuclear [00:23:00] bombs sailing. Through the skies that I fear, it’s the people that have come through the border that are in your neighborhood and mine that are corrosively taking down the democracies, the, the, the, the small governments in our neighborhoods, our villages, our counties and our states and.

I’m concerned about how the deep state through the antics of a George Soros, a Bill Gates, a Mark Zuckerberg, and I could name and you could name 10 more that are funding worldwide through a 501c4 type system that authorizes this money then to then contribute to candidates of their choice. Well, if you look at Scott Walter’s book, uh, Mandy, you’ll see 100 percent of three plus billion dollars more than the REC and DNC combined, uh, [00:24:00] have contributed strictly to Democrat candidates.

As evidenced by the fact that Kamala Harris is close to a billion dollars in fundraising, uh, from these deep state actors and the deep state media is now making fun of trump because he picked up a few million bucks from, uh, from elon musk. What say you? How does this compliment your, your, your position?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, it’s that’s very consistent. And it’s what when I always say, and the way that I’ve been talking about this election, we’re not necessarily it’s conservatives and Trumpicans, we’re not up against Kamala Harris, we are up against that machine that you just described. And the left has been taking advantage of and abusing loopholes to allow for foreign dollars to come in, to then be dispersed among nonprofit political nonprofits, that don’t have to fully disclose, uh, they don’t have to fully disclose their donors and where funds come from.

Um, they have [00:25:00] used that to set up an entire shadow campaign that from a investment perspective, dwarfs the Democrat National Committee and the types of contributions that they give to their members. They have all of these various, Groups that will go outta their way, um, to, to, uh, to undermine conservative representatives.

But that’s not even the worst part. The other thing that they’ve done is they figured out a way to use taxpayer dollars by virtue of grants. And you see this at the EPA right now, there’s this new office that was created under Biden called the Environmental Justice Office. Now Environmental Justice. Is something that we worked on in the Trump administration, communities that are more susceptible to pollution in lower income areas.

They tend to be higher minority populations that that issue was substantively dealt with during the Trump administration. What the Biden team did is they took this issue, um, and they [00:26:00] turned it into a whole separate office and under the guise of Elevating this issue. They got billions of dollars from Congress from the falsely called Inflation Reduction Act, billions of dollars for grants to go to environmental justice communities.

Now all of that just sounds so great, but the problem is, um, The actual funds are not going to help environmental justice communities. They’re going and landing in the hands of third party groups aimed at shoring up leftist political power and supporting Democrat candidates. So you have this operation, uh, billions of taxpayer dollars being washed through a fake office created during the Biden administration so that those dollars land in the pockets.

Of Democrat political activists and the left has also figured out how to do this and they have their their their brethren in the deep state 90 just about 96% The people affiliated with political activity [00:27:00] in the federal government align themselves with the Democrat Party. Um, they’re not going to apply oversight and call out this bad behavior, so they ultimately get away with it.

Gene Valentino: Well, don’t, isn’t it reaching a point now where they’re, it’s like they’ve been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and they’re at a point now where they’re gonna have to distance themselves. Is there no small coincidence? Certain candidates running for Senate and Congress are not complimenting Donald Trump, but they’re certainly not aligning with Kamala Harris.

Instead, they’re proud of the fact that they supported legislation that either Trump initiated or Trump had endorsed. Do you see that going on? They got to distance themselves from this bad behavior. Bad behavior again. Bad behavior. Folks. Do you see it, Mandy?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, I do. Um, so much of how the bureaucracy operates and the Democrat Party in General. It’s a C. Y. A. Exercise because [00:28:00] they abused their authority. They weaponized federal agencies to go against people or industries that have fallen out of political favor. A. K. A. Aren’t on their donor stream. Um, they use that power to go after them. And now we’re at this point where you know, Trump is most likely going to win.

I mean, the momentum is with him. It’s not even just the, the, the Senate, the people running for Senate and Congress, Kamala Harris herself, tried to use president Trump’s border wall. Like it’s insane how, how ridiculous and, and how unqualified she is. It’s so very clear. And then how bad their ideas are to the point where they’re trying to.

Trump’s ideas that they themselves have been on record denigrating for years.

Gene Valentino: Okay, so you know, we have 27 amendments to the Constitution of the United States, a very well written document, you know it well, the, the 27 amendments that followed the first 10, the Bill of [00:29:00] Rights, but this, these 27 amendments all were worrying about articulating rights that were probably ignored or not clearly articulated in the founding document, such as a woman’s right to vote, the emancipation, blacks and whites being equal and so forth.

All these issues, um, seizure and access and the right to declare the fifth for privacy and all the other issues. My question is these are rights based amendments that are amendments to articulate the rights you should have the liberties, the freedoms. How about some amendments to the Constitution that now punish for the specific wrongdoing of the antics you and I just got finished talking about?

Um, manipulation of election, election integrity, Um, uh, justice department, um, [00:30:00] uh, with election interference, uh, ballot harvesting proof of these things to me is a intentional act by the misuse of government to protect a political party or go after an individual. I can’t understand, especially in this last four years.

Why so many Democrats hate Donald Trump more than they love America. The vitriol and the anger is so egregious, Mandy, that you would think an amendment would be in order. To punish bad behavior now, since all the rights are clearly identified. Tell me a right that’s not identified. We’ve gone the other extreme with transgenderism and women, men and women’s sports and etc.

That I think rights have been pretty well [00:31:00] articulated. I think abuse has not been articulated. What say you?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, I think that’s that’s exactly right. And I think our founding documents understood the natural evolution of any centralized entity to want to expand its relevance and grow. And in the process of that, it incrementally diminishes the rights of the individual and the state.

State and that’s why so much of the original documents went out of their way to explicitly carve out their protections because they understood as we all know, and unfortunately have had to deal with the consequences of it not being kept in check, that a growing federal capital state really infringes on the role of the individual, but the role of the voter.

It is so problematic that an unelected bureaucrat. Over 2 million now, mind you, are responsible for implementing the laws. And in many instances, unless they’re challenged in the [00:32:00] courts, um, they’re given some degree of significant leniency. Now I say all this

Gene Valentino: And if it’s a federal employee, it’s immunity from prosecution.

And my concern is under your comment about, um, restoring some federalism and draining the swamp to me, uh, when you say federalism, I don’t think you mean the centralization of control, which moves us more towards socialism, Marxism, communism, you’re thinking of, uh, of what I would call a uniform platform where all of us in the 50 states are working, playing off the same hymnal, right?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, and it’s about restoring the role of the state as a true partner. Um, it’s more cooperation, not coercive. Not responding to the coercive mandates of a federal government. Um, federalism is that partnership in implementing our constitutional republic, something that has been out [00:33:00] of balance for quite some time.

And it’s, it’s only continually gotten worse.

Gene Valentino: And to, um, complement your point, uh, let’s look at the federal election of a president. Right now, today, we have two candidates running, and some people can vote. And others can’t because of early voting. The early voting rules, as you know, vary state to state.

The, that puts an advantage in place in certain states to see a little bit more about Donald Trump and Kamala Harris by holding off your vote until November 5th. It disadvantages the early voter who two weeks from now may say, oops, I voted two weeks ago. I think I made a mistake. And here’s why last night on the news.

I just found out blah, blah, blah. And so this inconsistency to me justifies a new constitutional amendment [00:34:00] that that the voting process should be uniform and consistent in all 50 states. After all, we all have ballots. We go home to vote in. My ballot is very different with the local city councilman and county commissioner and U.

1. congressional representative, state U. S. senator and so forth, but we, we all have one person in common that we’re voting for and that’s the president and vice president, uh, on every ballot. It would seem to me that there is room under your federalism idea to bring a uniform plan in place. in all 50 states and the district to allow for a uniform method of voting.

Oh yes, the Secretary of State in each state manages the process, but I don’t think they have the authority or should have the authority to discriminate or advantage one state over and over another in the methodology of the voting. Your comment. [00:35:00]

Mandy Gunasekara: Well, yeah, I mean, I saw front and center. I was part of the lawyers for Trump during the 2020 election in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

So these are the suburbs right outside of Philadelphia. Um, and saw a lot of the shenanigans that went on in the provisional ballot bites that we were involved in for days after the election. Um, I would say I would, I would craft a balance where. The states do continue to lead the charge because just like everything else that has been federalized, um, in the sense that the federal government kind of takes over, um, the left is much better at using those institutions to effectuate their outcomes than the right.

But I do think there are themes that should be universal, like illegal, uh, People who are non citizens should not have the ability to vote. I don’t care what state you’re in or what the timeline is that you can actually cast your vote. If you’re not a citizen of this country, you don’t get to [00:36:00] vote. That should be pretty uniform.

Gene Valentino: And as an extension to that, um, proof of, uh, citizenship and voting, as you know, to explain what just happened in California.

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, well, California for a long time has been trying to make it illegal for poll workers to ask for the identification of the person in coming in to vote. And it really it’s come to a head this year.

Um, where the, the poll workers can’t ask for people’s ID and you have this influx of millions of illegal aliens that are all throughout the country, many of them in California, um, that we know are going to show up. Not only do we know, we know that they’ve been coached, they’ve been coached to show up and cast their vote for the Democrat party.

Gene Valentino: And to me, this is the greatest perpetration of a fraud, the use of government money and government authority to impose a. a direction on your ballot, [00:37:00] uh, beyond your control. You know, it’s funny the word democracy and democrat party for many of the immigrants. I don’t say they’re stupid. I just say they’re ignorant on some of the distinctions between a Democratic party and a Republican party.

I think if they got to know the difference between a Democrat party, which was a endorsing slavery, not too many years ago, uh, that, uh, they would find themselves better at home with Abraham Lincoln and many other Republicans in the Republican party, um, who, who, who more aggressively supported, um, Uh, free right, free trade, free access, free speech, and certainly the right to vote not only for the, uh, for the different races, but for women as well.

And, uh, I think, I think what’s happened is the deep state under a big, I hope America moves this next [00:38:00] four years. in moving the mountain on eliminating the fraud the Democrats have exposed within the operation of government. That’s why someone like you needs to get back in the government. I know it’s painful, but these constitutional amendments with legal beagles like yourself that know better to bring forth, when else are we going to bring an amendment forward?

With a Republican House and a Republican Senate and a Republican president, the it’s definitely if there’s a chance for amendments to come forward, it’s during that time frame. And that would be historic to fix major issue on malfeasance and penalties for not protecting a border, uh, doing things necessary to create a uniform definition of an American citizen.

Ergo, a legal voter. And, uh, and thirdly, uh, a balanced budget. How about that? And how about term limits for [00:39:00] congressmen and women and senators that, um, uh, you know, whether it’s Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, or, um, Chuck McConnell, uh, uh, it’s, it, to me, it’s, um, it’s time for these people to go after a certain length of time.

What say you?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, I think that. Well, I would say the good news is I agree that the passage of a constitutional amendment would be historic. Um, and you have to typically those take a long time and you need some type of momentum. I will say when it comes to addressing the deep state, which just to be very clear, it is a tool of the progressive left.

That’s how it was designed. That’s how it’s continued to be. And that’s why it’s not about get ready, getting rid of it and replacing it. It’s just getting rid of it altogether because we’ve got to once and for all shrink the size and scope of the federal government. That will certainly help on the budgetary side.

That’ll help the economy boom. I was listening this morning to a podcast. Peter St. [00:40:00] Onge is an expert at the Heritage Foundation, a place I also work at, and he was talking about the fact that there are certain manufacturing jobs in this country today, that the taxes and the regulatory costs actually are more than what the salary of the worker ultimately is.

That is a huge problem and totally, totally counter to creating the type of It’s a problem. It’s a problem that we have had. And there’s an easy fix to it. The good news is that there are tools available today to fix these problems that the president can institute on day one. Having a constitutional amendment to back that up or legislation, that would be fantastic for the long term.

But in the interim, we know that we can fix the border. We know that he can shrink the size and scope of the federal government. One of the things I recommend, I call it a 30 for 30, but on day one, we We need the budgets of each of the agencies submitted that cut 30 percent of the agencies in, or cut each agency by 30 percent within the first 30 [00:41:00] days.

Budgeting typically is treated as sort of a rubber stamp process, but it is a super effective tool to really lay the groundwork and start trimming away. The duplicative offices or the offices have that that have been co opted for political purposes. Many, I know many right off hand at EPA that could make a really big difference and get the government out of the way so that the people can do what the people do best much better than any protected expert in Washington, D.

1. may think that they know about. So the good news is There’s lots of tools and ways to fix this now. Um, and, and broader governance changes that could happen on day one that really restore the role of the individual, protect those rights, and once and for all degrade the number and relevance of bureaucrats in everyday American’s lives.

Gene Valentino: Folks, we’re talking with Mandy Gunasekara. She is a director of the Independent Women’s Forum on Energy. And [00:42:00] conservation. She’s a veteran of the Republican climate and energy strategist, a communicator, and an environmental attorney. She is also a principal at section seven strategies. Look them up. Uh, uh, she’s a visiting fellow as well with the heritage foundation and an advisor to, uh, uh, Satoshi action group.

That’s no correlation to Satoshi Nakamoto on the blockchain technology. Is it? It is.

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, I’m part of a group. I work with Bitcoin miners. I’m trying to show to shore up the you know that that budding technology. Um, we didn’t we don’t necessarily have to get into it today. But from an environmental and an energy grid perspective, it is it is really great technology that can fix a lot of the problems caused by other bad things. Decisions.

Gene Valentino: Okay. You and I have touched so many topics and I think we could go two hours more [00:43:00] on all these topics. I want to ask you, since there’s so many things you’ve been working in and around, is there one or two in particular you want to focus on before we call it a day?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, well, certainly. I mean, I’ve been I would say at the Heritage Foundation.

I do want to touch on Project 2025. I helped draft the EPA chapter and it’s it was really important work, but I I know it’s been it’s been admonished even by President Trump because There are those have tried to take this policy handbook and turn it into a political weapon. But I’ll tell you, I wrote the EPA chapter and I actually had to testify before Congress a couple weeks ago.

And I heard the lies of the left trying to say that Project 2025 was something President Trump had worked on. He had nothing to do with it. And I know personally I was in charge of that chapter. It’s chapter 13 if you want to go check it out. But it’s, it is a great picture. of where the conservative movement is.

It’s not just the [00:44:00] Heritage Foundation. It’s a combination conservative nonprofits. If we had a clean slate for how to make the federal government, um, fulfill important roles, but not get so big that the unelected bureaucrat is more important than the individual voter. This is how we would design it. And some of the key policy changes we would take.

It’s the work of the conservative movement. President Trump, his team and his campaign had absolutely nothing to do with it. But I, I do encourage folks who are curious about what a conservative administration could look like, whether it’s EPA, Interior Energy, HHS, every single one of the agencies had a chapter leader and people thought really critically about What would this policy vision look like?

Um, and number two is who are the people who could be ready to go to implement something like that? And let’s start training them. The other reason why Project 2025 was so denigrated by the left. Yes, they were trying to turn it into a political weapon against President Trump, but it scares [00:45:00] the left to death.

Because historically, they’ve been the only ones that during the off years, meaning when their guy or gal isn’t in the White House, they’re actually coming up with a strategy of what to do if they ever get the chance to control the various levers of power, conservatives got their act together over the past few years, um, and have really tried to figure out What would it look like?

What are the key policy changes and who would be a part of it? So coming up with a strategy, whether or not the president of elected ever actually taps into that, that’s his prerogative. But if he does tap into it, we’re going to be ready to go and not waste time, which scares the left death, which is why they’ve gone out of their way to try to undermine the credibility of it.

But It is a very credible, thoughtful, strategic document that I would encourage people to take a look at as well.

Gene Valentino: Mandy Gunasekara, she’s, her book is Y’all Fired. So you got to get it. Y’all fired. You’re fired if you don’t get it. Mandy [00:46:00] Gunasekara, tell them they can get it on Amazon and where?

Mandy Gunasekara: Barnes and Noble.

Gene Valentino: Okay. And, uh, you got a website address you want to throw out there for them to follow you?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you can either follow me on X at Mississippi MG, or you can check out my website, mandy. ms.

Gene Valentino: You know, one of the things you’re bringing up, which touches so many of the topics we’ve discussed today and in the book, have to do with the centralization of power in government.

The we the people idea where we individually think we are part of a collective group that we, as elected officials, work for our bosses, the people who voted us in. Whereas the Democrats think, uh, you just do what I tell you. I’m in charge now. And, um, you’re, you’re not, you don’t have a say. I’m in charge now and we’re going to do it this way.

It’s amazing. I see it when a Congressman, for example, running in the district [00:47:00] of anywhere USA comes into Washington with an agenda of Maybe his top 10 list of things he wants to accomplish. For whom? The people that voted him in! Only to find out that a Nancy Pelosi in the ilk turned to that congressman or woman and says, now, hold on a second.

You put your list on hold. Here’s the list you’re going to deal with. And this is our DC list. Once we get through some of this list, uh, we’ll address what you have. Oh, by the way, for the next 12 to 24 months, we want you on the phones X number of hours per day, per week, uh, gunning for money. For the Democrat Party for the Republican Party.

It’s it’s to me a total misplacement of priorities today. The Democrats aren’t working as hard on gunning for that money because they’ve got a deep state system that has been corrupted [00:48:00] through the billionaires of the world. Funding 100 percent of the, I challenge anybody out there to find NGO, NGA money.

The 501C4s and C5s, show me where that money is going to a Republican. I can’t find it. Now, no matter what you think of my congressman, Matt Gaetz, here in the panhandle of Florida, he refuses to take PAC money, let alone these NGO funds. So to his credit, and he’s a strong supporter of Trump, to his credit, he has been objective.

And he’s caused some heartburn at times in the halls of Congress because he’s had the chance to stand on his own and explain his position without compromise from PAC money, uh, yelling at him in the background. And I think that’s a healthy thing in many ways because he is truly representing the citizens.

that put him there in the first place. Uh, [00:49:00] I think on the Democrat side, that is not the case. Many of the elections around the nation, uh, in the in the top seven states that were in question, Mandy, we’re showing that the Democrats had a strong chance of winning. With 100 percent of their money coming from these deep state operatives, they’re now in a 48 split.

I don’t believe the polls being that tight anyway, but, but nonetheless, uh, they’re billions of dollars. Doesn’t seem to be working comment.

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah. Well, the polls in particular. If Kamala Harris is tied or even slightly above, I think she’s slightly behind today, um, she’s losing by a lot because we know the polls don’t accurately capture President Trump’s um, supporters and it’s only gotten worse in recent years.

I have to get credit to my husband, he did a deep dive on this the other day, but if you look at some of the swing [00:50:00] states in particular, going back to 2020 and even 2016, where Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden were purportedly up by 6 to 8 to 10 points. At the end of the day, they either lost or they only won it by 50,

000 votes, depending on how you ultimately look at it. So the fact that she’s tied showed that she’s losing.

Gene Valentino: Well, isn’t that interesting? You, you, your husband and you took the words out of my mouth. I was going to reference the 2016 and 2020 elections and how this neck and neck polling turned out to be a much different result in the, in the election.

Which means I think we need an analysis on the criteria of the polling process that goes more than just, well, it’s got a 3 percent margin of error. No, there’s other factors. Maybe the people you polled were just Democrat voters. How about that for apples? Did you, did you, what, what is the scent? How many of them were illegals?

Aliens. How many of them shouldn’t be [00:51:00] giving you an answer in a poll in the first place because they have no entitlement to vote? How many people are, uh, really not from that area and couldn’t vote in that region where the poll was occurring? So, I don’t know if the polling process, what the merits are because the pollsters, and there’s quite a few professional pollsters out there, it’s, uh, less an admonishment of the pollsters, uh, but more a questioning of the criteria.

And, uh, I think that, um, I hope that’s brought into light. I think, mark my word, Trump wins by 8 points in this election, maybe 10. It would have been closer to 20 points if we, uh, were certain to have cured all of the, uh, ballot harvesting and illegal voting. behavior, uh, through all 50 states. If it was a pure election with no illegal votes, I suspect Trump wins by over 15 points.

Uh, I’ll ha I’m [00:52:00] happy with eight points, at the end of this election, as compared to a 50 50, near 50 50 tie on the polling. Agree? Disagree?

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, I think, I think, I think President Trump is going to win. I think he’s going to win by a lot more than the polls are suggesting. And you always think of this, when the polls start becoming the headline, it’s because the mainstream media is trying to distract voters away from the actual issues.

Polls aren’t indicative of some, um, some realistic outcome. It’s indicative of a trend. Um, and so you have to put them in their relative place and how ultimately they have been used. But the best way for folks to think about polls is, you know what, I’m just going to show up, I’m going to vote, and the ultimate poll will be who wins this election.

And I agree with your assessment, Gene. I do think it’ll be by, be President Trump by much more than many people are willing to admit.

Gene Valentino: Well, thank you for joining me today, Mandy. Any parting concluding comment you’d like to make to the folks? Grab that book behind you. I [00:53:00] see. Let’s, uh, let’s, uh, boast a little bit about what folks, this just came out, uh, October 2nd, Mandy Gunasekara’s book.

Y’all fired. What’s give a caption of it again, Mandy.

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, a southern bells guide to restoring federalism and draining the swamp. It’s on Amazon. It’s on Barnes and Noble. Um, and you can also follow. I talk a lot about this and other issues on X at Mississippi Mg. Um, but Gene, I have to, my parting words are, I’m so glad you have a show like this.

I have to say, One of the most important rights that we have is the ability of free speech and censorship has been on the rise and the more conservatives and smart minded reasonable people we have out there filling the airwaves like your show. I think it’s so important. I’m, I’m happy to be a part of your show today and have an opportunity to engage with your listeners.

Gene Valentino: Well, that’s very kind of you. Thank you for joining us. You know, Uh, because of the deep state activity in muzzling free [00:54:00] speech on the major broadcast networks, a few conservative networks like Fox and Newsmax to, well, more Newsmax these days than Fox, uh, but nonetheless, there’s a few out there that remain conservative and, um, I should say more, uh, more, uh, uh, appropriately objective and fair and balanced in the reporting of the news, uh, is the, is the key to, uh, good broadcast journalism.

Journalism 101 and 201 that I took in college, I think have fallen by the wayside in terms of credentials, in terms of, um, Oversight and monitoring in terms of substantiating the merits of a case or a position with a second or third source to verify the facts that you present on these kinds of shows.

These shows, these social media shows bubbling up on the streaming services is a consequence of that bad behavior again that we saw in the limited media [00:55:00] and the Jeff Bezos and the Zuckerbergs and other media giants. That controlled the messaging and MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN is exactly why someone like a Newsmax coming out with an investment opportunity to let millions of people step up and invest is the speaking of the masses in the media environment for the first time that I’ve seen in a long time in just that industry, this industry, and I think the future transformation of media It’s not about an old fashioned radio and TV station and the network they’re related to anymore.

It’s now a, a consolidation, a, a, a morphing of all sorts of pathways. It’s like many highways going in the same direction, each a different highway with a different flavor, but nonetheless they’re all going in the same direction and [00:56:00] that’s what the future media is going to provide. This show, GrassRoots TruthCast, is but one example.

And I’m very lucky to have had a, uh, a young lady like you, uh, Mississippi bell for seven Generations, uh, step up and speak to the heartfelt issues of this nation. And your willingness, through your book as well, Y’all Fired, to express the spirit, the emotional flavor and feeling that we all have in this beautiful thing we call a constitutional republic, sitting against a backdrop of a democracy that has worked for almost 250 years.

If these Democrats are so smart, how come we’re not better off? We’ve got to do things in a constitutional way, a conservative way, that has been proven historically. And to your point, Mandy, I pray that these people on election day, [00:57:00] less, just about two weeks, two weeks away, Uh, vote Donald Trump back in to restore the constitutional republic we’ve been so proud of for so many years.

Thank you for joining us today, Mandy, on the GrassRoots TruthCast. We’ve got to have you back because I’d like to, I’d like to do a follow up. I’d like to take this show and compare what we’ve talked about today against the results on November 6th.

Mandy Gunasekara: Yeah, I’m, well, I’m happy to come on anytime, Gene. I really appreciate you having me.

Gene Valentino: Thank you for being with us. And thank you folks for joining us in another episode of Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots TruthCast. See you soon.

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