President Donald Trump’s top disaster response official once said he teleported to a Georgia Waffle House—but he failed to materialize before Congress on Wednesday.
Gregg Phillips, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Response and Recovery, was blasted by Democrats as “unfit” for the job after pulling out of a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on the ongoing DHS shutdown at the last minute.
Democratic Rep. Tim Kennedy called Phillips “wildly unfit for his role as head of response and recovery,” and said he had hoped to ask Phillips about his election conspiracy theories, his violent threat against former President Joe Biden, and his past rhetoric about immigrants, NOTUS reports.
“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,” the New York congressman said, according to the outlet.
Phillips, who was appointed to his post in December despite having no official disaster-relief experience, had claimed on a January 2025 podcast that he was teleported miles across Georgia.
“I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House,” he explained. “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.”
“Teleporting is no fun,” Phillips said on the Onward podcast, co-hosted by conservative activist Catherine Engelbrecht. “It was real.” The comments were first reported by CNN.
The 65-year-old conspiracy theorist also described another incident while he was driving in which he was “lifted up” and teleported some 40 miles from Albany, Georgia, before being set down in a ditch near a church.
Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson said Phillips’ role at the disaster relief agency “raises serious concerns,” noting he once said that Biden “deserves to die,” NOTUS reports.
“I would like to punch that b---h in the mouth right now,” Phillips said the same January 2025 podcast. “He is a nasty, s--tty, c--py human being, and he deserves to die. And I hope he does.”
When reached for comment, a FEMA spokesperson told the Daily Beast in a statement, “This is so silly it’s barely worth acknowledging.”
“DHS, FEMA, and Mr. Phillips are focused on the critical mission of emergency management and ensuring the safety of the American people. Many of the comments cited are taken out of context or represent personal, informal, jovial, and somewhat spiritual discussions made in the context of barely surviving cancer; in a private capacity prior to his current role,” the spokesperson said.
At the hearing, Thompson remarked, “That kind of violent rhetoric and wild conspiracy theories are troubling for someone who holds a leadership position at DHS.”
Thompson said Phillips was absent due to an “emergency,” according to NOTUS.
The Trump administration has sought to severely roll back FEMA as part of its federal cost-cutting crusade, with the president even weighing whether to dismantle the agency entirely.
Ex-DHS secretary Kristi Noem, who called for FEMA to be “eliminated,” faced calls to resign over her handling of FEMA in the wake of deadly flooding in Texas last summer.
She has been heavily criticized for implementing a policy requiring her review and sign-off on all DHS contracts and grants over $100,000, an added layer of bureaucracy that has been blamed for delaying the approval of vital federal aid.
