The second-highest ranking employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Director of Response and Recovery Gregg Phillips, has publicly doubled down on his claim that God performed a miracle on him by teleporting him to a Waffle House 50 miles northwest of Atlanta to the town of Rome, Georgia. Phillips first made the teleportation claims in 2025 on a podcast called Onward, hosted by his friend and fellow conservative activist Catherine Engelbrecht, with whom he was jailed for contempt of court in 2022. Phillips claimed on the podcast that he had been teleported not once, but twice, and that the first time God moved him, with his car, to a ditch outside a church about 40 miles away.
The New York Times attempted to verify Phillips’ claims of teleportation to the Waffle House by interviewing employees and customers at all three of the Waffle Houses in Rome, but no one at any of the restaurants recognized Phillips’ photo.
Phillips is also an election conspiracy theorist who once said he wanted to “punch Joe Biden in the [expletive] mouth right now” and that Biden “deserves to die, and I hope he does.” House Rep. Bennie Thompson, Ranking Member of the House Homeland Security Committee, addressed Phillips’ violent rhetoric and claims of teleportation in a Committee hearing 12 days ago:
Phillips oversees a department at FEMA with over 1,000 employees and a budget of nearly $300 million.
Phillips’ claims of teleportation recently became a target of late night comedy by Stephen Colbert:
Sounds like he had a night on the town with Whiskey Pete Hegseth….
Repuglicans never lie so it’s true. WOW!
I think most Republicans have been teleported to the Waffle House. That is the only logical explanation.