Trump comments on FEMA official's supernatural claim: 'I know nothing about teleporting'
President Donald Trump responded to a request for comment on supernatural experiences claimed by a high-ranking official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Gregg Phillips, the third-ranking official at FEMA, has been quietly sidelined from key operations following public reports that he claims to have teleported 50 miles to a Waffle House in Georgia, and CNN's KFILE reported that he has made other bizarre claims about personal experiences with the supernatural.
The controversial claims, made during podcast appearances over recent years, prompted the White House to urge Department of Homeland Security officials to remove Phillips from public view, according to a White House official.
“Everyone’s thoughts were, ‘What the hell is this? This guy has got to go,’” the official said.
KFILE contacted the president himself to ask about Phillips and his claims about teleportation.
“What does teleport mean?" Trump said. "Was he kidding?”
When told that Phillips was not kidding, Trump responded: “I don’t know anything about teleporting. … It just sounds a little strange, but I know nothing about teleporting or him, but I’ll find out about it right now.”
Phillips has recounted numerous extraordinary experiences across right-wing podcasts, including an incident at an Indianapolis Lowe's where he said he collapsed and disappeared for two hours, only to wake in a McDonald's parking lot across the street with 15,000 steps logged on his health app and a Big Mac in his lap.
Phillips has said many experiences occurred while treating metastatic bone cancer with ivermectin and fenbendazole — antiparasitic drugs commonly used for deworming animals — rather than pursuing conventional chemotherapy, and he claims that God sat on his bed and diagnosed him with cancer.
“He sat me up in the bed and he sat cross-legged with me – I’ll never forget it,” Phillips said, “and he said, ‘Hey, your cancer’s back, but don’t worry, I’ve got this.’”
In the same January 2025 podcast where he talked about teleportation, Phillips claims that a deceased girlfriend suddenly appeared inside his moving car – which he'd recently won in a poke game – and lifted it from the road to avoid crashing into an oncoming truck.
“The girl that I had dated came into the car with me, the girl that had died,” Phillips said. “She said ‘You’re not going to survive this. So I’m going to take you away,' and she lifted me and the car up and out of the way from a truck that had slid across the road and had come all the way across the road and was about to hit me.”
Phillips said these experiences happened so often that a friend jokingly referred to him as “God’s zombie," existing “half in and half out” of heaven to continue unfinished work for God.
“I’m actually dead,” Phillips said in April 2025. “But I’m here doing God’s stuff, and so we laugh about that a little bit.”
Within days of CNN's March report on the teleportation claims, Phillips was pulled from a scheduled Capitol Hill hearing and barred from posting about teleportation on Truth Social. He has since grown increasingly suspicious and agitated, according to multiple FEMA insiders.
Last week, newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin traveled to western North Carolina for Hurricane Helene recovery efforts without Phillips, despite his oversight of disaster response and recovery. The exclusion underscores Phillips's diminished role at the agency.
Despite the controversy, some senior FEMA officials have privately defended Phillips, arguing that his willingness to challenge agency leadership on staffing cuts and spending controls makes him valuable.
One official acknowledged the tension: "Yes, it's hard to trust the judgment of someone who said they teleported and then doubled down on it. But he seems to really care about people."