Overview
- CNN’s KFile compiled past podcasts and posts in which Gregg Phillips described involuntary ‘teleportation’ episodes, including to a Waffle House 50 miles away, and claimed his truck was carried about 40 miles before being dropped near a church.
- Phillips, appointed in December to lead FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, holds a central role in search-and-rescue coordination, emergency aid decisions, infrastructure restoration and distribution of billions in recovery assistance.
- The compilation also highlights a record of far-right activism and violent rhetoric, including a January 2025 remark that Joe Biden “deserves to die,” as well as baseless election-fraud claims and warnings of a covert foreign “fighting force.”
- A FEMA spokesperson dismissed the reporting as “so silly it’s barely worth acknowledging,” characterizing the remarks as personal, out-of-context, and made before his appointment, invoking his cancer survivorship as context.
- Phillips is slated to appear before the House Homeland Security Committee soon, and some lawmakers are expected to question his past statements alongside his management of federal disaster response; several career officials say early concerns eased after observing his winter storm response.