The top official answerable for the federal authorities’s catastrophe response has taken to social media to double down on his claim that he’s skilled “teleportation” – an expertise he insists was actual and related to his non secular beliefs – whereas additionally saying his remarks have been taken out of context.
“Haters gonna hate,” Gregg Phillips, a senior official on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, wrote in a single remark defending himself earlier this month.
“I know what I’ve experienced,” he wrote in one other post, in what seemed to be a poem the place he refers to folks ridiculing what they don’t perceive and to Jesus Christ rising from the lifeless.
NCS previously reported that Phillips, who serves as affiliate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA, described in a podcast final yr a number of episodes through which he stated he was all of a sudden teleported miles away — together with as soon as to a Waffle House roughly 50 miles from the place he had been.
NCS additionally reported Phillips had a historical past of violent rhetoric in direction of public officers. He stated in a podcast final yr that he’d wish to punch “that b*tch” within the mouth, referring to former President Joe Biden who had simply left workplace, earlier than including, “He deserves to die.” In one other podcast, Phillips stated that migrants have been coming to kill Americans whereas warning folks to be armed.
The appointment of Phillips had beforehand drawn skepticism from some profession FEMA officers over his lack of expertise and previous feedback spreading election fraud conspiracy theories, although a number of instructed NCS earlier this yr that his work throughout main storms had tempered a few of these issues.
Phillips’ latest feedback come as he was taken off the schedule to testify final week at a House Homeland Security Committee listening to on the impacts of the partial shutdown of DHS, which oversees FEMA. Neither FEMA nor Phillips responded to a remark request from NCS asking why he didn’t attend.
On Truth Social, the social media platform based by President Donald Trump, Phillips described the teleportation incidents as tied to a “spiritual journey” throughout a interval he stated he was present process most cancers therapies and pointed to biblical examples of supernatural occasions.
“I have no regrets for my words nor my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ,” Phillips wrote after NCS’s report, whereas arguing his feedback have been taken out of context. “The Bible has many examples of the power of God.”
At the listening to, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the rating House Democrat on the committee, stated Phillips’ appointment raised “serious concerns.”
“Mr. Phillips reportedly claims to have been involuntarily teleported multiple times, including once to a Waffle House in Georgia,” Thompson stated.
Pointing to Phillips’ feedback about Biden, Thompson added: “That kind of violent rhetoric and wild conspiracy theories are troubling for someone who holds a leadership position at DHS.”
Democratic Rep. Tim Kennedy described Phillips as “wildly unfit for his role as head of FEMA response and recovery,” citing “his violent statements about former President Biden” and “deeply troubling bigoted comments about immigrants.”
Kennedy added: “All of which, to me, makes him wholly disqualified to hold his position on its own — but only to be outdone by his claims of being teleported to a Waffle House.”
On Truth Social, in different posts responding to criticism, Phillips additionally shared a passage from the New Testament Book of Acts through which the Holy Spirit “snatched” away the apostle Phillip after a baptism on a street between Jerusalem and Gaza, with the textual content then describing him as appearing within the metropolis of Azotus miles away.
In one other alternate on the platform, Phillips was requested whether or not he had personally skilled such a phenomenon.
“Yes,” he replied, including that “the Bible calls it transported or translated.”
Phillips added that the feedback on teleporting to the Waffle House have been taken out of context, although he has declined to say how.
“Out of context,” he wrote. “This was a discussion during medical treatments in what we believed to be the last 3 months of my life. Some of the episodes we couldn’t show. The other translation was to a church.”
Neither FEMA nor Phillips responded to a number of requests for touch upon what a part of NCS’s previous reporting was taken out of context.
In beforehand reported podcast appearances, Phillips described a number of incidents through which he stated he was bodily teleported, calling the experiences horrifying and uncontrollable.
“I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House – this was in Georgia and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was,” Phillips said in a January 2025 podcast episode.
“It was real,” Phillips stated, including at one other level: “Teleporting is no fun.”
In the identical dialogue, Phillips additionally described one other episode through which he stated his car was “lifted up” whereas he was driving and carried dozens of miles earlier than being set down close to a church.