It's seven oh six, Brian Thomas. You're wishing everyone to happy Friday and welcoming to the fifty five theirse Morning Show author Mandy Gunnisakara. She's got a great background to write this book. We're gonna be talking about, y'all, Fire, a Southern Midle's guide to Restoring Federalism, Draining the Swamp. She has been a center of US and energy and
environmental policy for the last decade to a decade. A veteran environmental attorney, energy strategist, and communicator, served under President Donald Trump as the Chief of Staff at the US Environmental Protection Agency. Currently a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation Yay, and she is a resident of Oxford, mississipp where she lives with her husband and children. Welcome to the Morning Show, Mandy Gunnis Sicara. It's a real pleasure to have you on today.
Well, good morning, and it's a pleasure to be with you.
And getting to the point on the subtitle draining this swamp. Here's a problem I have. We'll get into more details on the book, and thank you so much for writing it. I was looking, you know, and I'm a critics. I'm a critic of I don't believe that I'm exhaling us into oblivion. I do not believe it was a problem
with carbon dioxide. Honestly, I know it's tree food. I haven't bought into the religion, all right, So call me old fashioned, but I always counter this argument that we're killing the planet, which seems to serve as the basis for almost every removal of freedom that exists in our lives in this world, that the planet's temperature has ebbed and flowed. The estate of Ohio was at one time covered completely with a glacier. Thankfully it isn't anymore. The
earth got warmer, and now we grow corn here. So how is it that the airth temperature has ebbed and flowed?
And only right now it's our fault? So with that in mind, we have a collection, in my estimation, of useful idiots who have just taken that and just believed it as gospel, and then therefore allow things like ice internal combustion engine mandates in bands like's going on in California, where they force people to buy, for example, big rigs electric big rigs that go one hundred and fifteen miles versus the thousand to fifteen hundred miles of diesel trucks go,
which also happened to cost twice the price of a diesel truck. But they're not allowed to sell you a diesel unless they sell an EV. That is all made up. It's insanity and it's ruining our economy. One illustration. So to drain the swamp, don't we have to drain the useful idiots who are bought into this.
Yeah. Absolutely, And there's only so much you can do to not only get rid of them in terms of being responsible for consequential decision making, but you know they'll still be out there talking. President Trump appropriately referred to this group of folks as the profits of Doom. They've been around since the beginning of time. There's some famous ones in the Bible. And all you have to know is that they're always pushing the same socialist styled solutions
to whatever the doomsday prophecy is. And that's the case with climate change. Yes, you know there was. I worked for a senator from Oklahoma for quite some time and he used to reference a quote that they want to control carbon because if you control carbon, you can control life, And that truly is what they are after.
Yes, and then that that's the the controlling carbon in the name of well saving us all on the planet. That's the why that was created to serve the interest of the real motivation, the real religion, which is socialism, communism, Marxism, or just literal top down control from some collective of powerful elite over our lives.
Yeah, that's exactly right, because you know, they know better than us, that's what they think. And if they're going to destroy the economy, they have to be doing it for a good reason, so they still feel like good people. And that's that's hence all the problytizing about about you know, how to be how to be a better citizen, and we're all in this together in some of this language. But the truth is, none of that's necessary to have
a healthy thriving in environment and general public. We know this because we took a totally different approach during the Trump administration. We cut regulations, we gave people freedom back, we gave people financial investments back. And what happened. The economy boomed, and the way that you measure pollutants, whether it's clean air, clean water, or cleaning up legacy pollution in the soil. We continued to break records on all fronts.
So we know.
How to balance the two. We know how to do it successful. And you know what, it doesn't require you giving up your individual liberties and rights to some morally inept elite in Washington, DC that wants to tell you what to do.
Yeah, and you know, we could take all the efforts we want to get rid of carbon or fill in the blank on whatever other pollutant they claim that we're producing, and we could do it all day long and succeed in meeting zero mission standard, which means we will probably not have electricity. Meanwhile, China continues to belch out more than we have taken out of the pl and increases
the amount every single day. I'm sorry, but the globe is one single set of air and we're all breathing, and so our efforts are negated by our enemy.
Yeah, exactly right. Well, and that therein lies the key problem with the so called Paris Climate Accord. And one of the first things I worked on with President Trump and getting out was that disastrous deal. And it's because it's it's all the bonus burden financial pain falls in the United States. Meanwhile, it gives not only countries like China a free pass, but also India and Russia and
their environmental standards. Maybe they look good on a piece of paper, but they have no intentions or seriousness about implementing them in ways that tangibly matter. If you truly care about global health or a better.
Environment, well, and it's in their best interest to do whatever the hell they want while we weaken ourselves by cutting our own throats in the name of well saving the world.
Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, as we suppress development, lose jobs and investment here in the United States, that demand does not go away. It just reservices somewhere else, and it's going to most likely resurface in a place like China where it's cheap. But it's cheap because they cut corners. And if you care about pollution, let's talk about traditional particulate matter pollution, soot, fine soot. China, you rightfully reference they're building a new coal plant just about
every week. They just propose a coal plant development plan outlook where they're going to have the largest coal fleet in the world. But the problem is the coal plants that they're building, they don't use pollution control devices. Are coal plants in the United States have been using for years well.
And the mandates on the scrubbing technology and the carbon removal technology are extraordinarily expensive. So the extent you could meet the EPA's onerous demands and removing carbon from the coal plant, you probably go out of business trying to accomplish that goal. So it's not even an option. Ergo, the coal plant doesn't get built.
That's right. They like to take a million dollar problem and turn it into a billion dollar liability, and that is how EPA uses itself, and it's become a tool of the left where they use the role of EPA to squeeze out the industries and people that have fallen out of political favor. And cold fired power plants gas
fired power plants are traditional energy resources. They've been front and center in that receipt of the weaponization of agencies like EPA and the Department of Interior, not because it makes sense from a policy perspective, but it makes sense from a political perspective by virtue of the left.
My guest today, author of y'all Fired Southern Bill's Guide to Restoring Federalism, Draining the Swamp, manny Gna Sakara Okay, let's cut to the chase you talk about in chapter four of your book about firing career employees. Very challenging problem. There are rules and REGs in place regarding higher and
firing a federal employee. So let's talk about that. Assuming you know, we all get our dream and not only do we cut out useless redundancies in government and just forever get rid of departments in restocking and re employing fired employees who are so politically biased that they can't do their job effectively for the American people. How do
we replace them? Are there people out there that reject this nonsense, would actually do their job without being politically biased and harming the American people.
Yeah? Well, I think a lot of the jobs that we propose to cut, we just don't replace. Because the truth is, the federal government, especially at the agency level, it should shrink by at least thirty percent, if not forty to fifty. And that's going to be really important.
A day one exercise for the next conservative administration will really need to be filtering all the jobs and offices at various agencies and determining which ones tangibly could tangibly promote and implement the agency's state admission and wish ones do not, and the ones that do not are superfluous. They need to go. But then, yeah, getting rid of political hacks that sent under this umbrella of public servant but actually undermine the direction the political direction of anyone
that they disagree. Experience this firsthand with President Trump. Not only do they disagree, they will go out of their way to demean, discredit, and demoralize the political appointees trying to implement that vision. So to the extent there needs to be some replacement. Another concept that I think is really important is moving portions of the federal agency out of DC so that you can pull from a broader grouping of potential employees people that would like to work
for the EPA or Interior. They've actually been in the field, have really great expertise that they could bring in, but they don't want to live in DC. And I understand, I don't live there anymore. I wouldn't wish that on anyoney. But if you move these outside of DC, then you can pull from a broader collection of experience and knowledge and where folks are from, which I think would really help improve the outcomes of various agencies.
Imagine using the Internet, email, text communications, zoom conference calls where you can participate from anywhere in the globe and still get your job done effectively. I love the idea of diversifying people out of the greater DC area, which is obviously infested with this disease. I like to call liberalism anyway, I doubt in the final analysis. I mean, this is an uphill challenge because it's not just the woke left Democrats. I mean, we've got some problems within
the Republican Party as well. You have to really truly stick your neck out to make these bold assertions in the face of this brainwashing that's gone on. Mandy, how do we address that?
Well, we're not alone. We're not alone as a conservative movement. We have the courageous, fearless leader we need at this moment, which is President Donald Trump. But we also have assistance from other industries. I'm talking about Elon Musk and a lot of the tech folks that two have stepped up and said, hey, there's something wrong with a federal government that wants to sensor speech and wants to take over the public square platforms. Because it's harder for them to
otherwise maintain political control. There's a convergence of folks even from RFK Junior and from the Vek Ramaswami all over that are coming out of the woodwork. So I'd say that momentum is coming together. It's swelling at a really good time. But I like your question because it denotes a tone of realism, and that's what we have to have. This isn't going to be solved in one administration. This is a long term commitment. But I would allude to
something that's happened before we could do it again. Look at the Supreme Court, So that was a bastion of liberalism and judicial activism, and a long term, methodical, well resourced, well planned strategy is how we ultimately got the opportunity to restore it back to its small, sy conservative routes. And we did that as as a as a coalition. So we've just got to stay the course, stay committed.
But we really need some key shifting, uh path shifting decisions made in this next administration, and a lot of that's going to come down to whether or not President Trump wins the election. I think he will, and then the plan that he starts implementing from day one. But there's a lot of folks who have thought critically about this are ready to go and committed to this long term process.
Well, I know you're familiar with the West Virginia versus EBA decision, which I thought was brilliant and wonderful. Going to pair back the out of control authors of all these rules and regulations behind the scene, you have to have a specific authority from Congress. So that and other decisions along those lines are probably are the reason that they want to pack the Supreme Court the left. I got a interesting thought process, a thought question before we
part coming today, Mandy. If they if let's say the type of thing, if they passed a court packing law in this particular administration, and then Trump won and the Republicans took over the House and sent it, how comical would it be that the Republicans would then appoint the additional justices to the Supreme Court.
You know what, It wouldn't be the first time they're playing backfire. And remember when Harry Reid pulled the two thirds dearnment for Supreme Court justices, you know, shot, really the first.
Time this shotenfreud of moment that was uh many, you got us the car. It has been a real pleasure. Thanks you for writing the book, y'all, a Southern Bell's guide restoring Federalism and draining the Trump We just scratched the surface of what's in this book. Folks get a copy of fifty five care Sea dot com along with the podcast of this conversation. Mandy, keep up the great work and hope to see you as part of the Trump administration.
God willing, Well, thank you so much. It really was a pleasure to be with you this morning.
My pleasure absolutely coming up at seven twenty fifty five care see the talk station opportunity for you. Mean to mention plumb type plumbing, great plumbers. You're going to get the best when you're working with plumb tight and they take great care of your home. No, let's start with no service charge. And when you call plumb type plumbing, you're not going to say, well, we're going to charge you one hundred and fifty to come out and assess your problem.
Uhh No, not plumb tight A plus with a better business Feera plumb type plumbing probably serving the greater Cincinnati, including my friends in Northern Kentucky and the Dayton area. An actual license plumber comes to your home. They will call you ahead of time to let you know when they are going to be there. Specifically, every time I call them, I get the call about twenty minutes ahead of time. GPS says, I'm twenty minutes out. I'll see in a few Great. I like that. So the window
narrows down to something very small that you can count on. Simple. But you know it's very nice because not already does that. And obviously with all the rain we had, maybe you got a drain problem or some pump went out. Call plumb Tight for any residential plumbing problem, they are going to fix it. Their customer service is truly exceptional, and
of course the pricing is always fair and ethical. They will never try to say is something you do not need, so give them a shout at five one, three, seven, two seven, eighty four eighty three, I had an emergency, no problem. Like to point out, last time I had a plumbing problem, I just used the online appointment scheduling on a Sunday and they got back with me in five minutes. Not saying that's going to be the case in every case, but that's that's it. That's plump tight plumbing,
so plumbing done right. They live by that motto five one three seven two seven Tight Online It's plumtight dot Com fifty five KRC