President Donald Trump has reacted with confusion after learning that a top disaster relief official in his administration continues to maintain he was once teleported to a Waffle House.
“What does teleport mean?” the president said to CNN, according to a report published Tuesday. “Was he kidding?”
“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,” Trump added.
“I had to literally stop in the middle like, ‘This is real,’” Andrew Kaczynski, the reporter who spoke to Trump, said on CNN on Tuesday of the conversation.
The exchange was in regard to FEMA Associate Administrator Gregg Phillips, who claimed he was once driving and suddenly transported 50 miles away to a Waffle House in Georgia.
Phillips, the number three official at the emergency response agency, made the comments in early 2025, before he was installed at FEMA late last year. He has continued to maintain he was teleported, though he insists he has been taken out of context and that CNN, which uncovered his claims, authored a “hit” piece.
“The word 'teleportation' was not mine,” Phillips wrote on social media earlier this month.
“It was used by someone else in the conversation reaching for language to describe something with no easy name,” he added. “The more accurate biblical terms are 'translated' or 'transported' — not new ideas for people of faith.”
Phillips, who began serving at FEMA in December, has reportedly been sidelined within the agency since his comments drew widespread attention, according to CNN.
He was taken off the schedule ahead of a recent congressional hearing soon after his comments came to light and the administration has reportedly directed him to stop making claims about teleportation.
Earlier this month, Phillips, who leads the FEMA Office of Response and Recovery, claimed President Trump’s Truth Social platform was blocking him from posting about the teleportation story.
“I’ve tried to post it six times,” Phillips wrote, tagging the platform’s CEO Devin Nunes. “Why are you blocking me and my ability to respond?”
The post, reported by Mediaite, appears to have since been taken down.
The official was also reportedly excluded from a recent trip with newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to visit parts of North Carolina still struggling with the aftermath of 2024’s Hurricane Helene.
The Independent has contacted the White House, FEMA and its parent agency DHS for comment.
Democratic critics of the president have been dismayed over the high-ranking FEMA official’s outlandish claims.
“FEMA is on its third unqualified acting administrator in 15 months,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said at the March hearing where Phillips had been slated to appear. “And the witness that was scheduled to testify today, Mr. Gregg Phillips, raises serious concerns.”
The Trump administration’s handling of the emergency agency has been under heavy scrutiny.
The White House has attempted to shrink the scope of federal disaster work by pursuing thousands of job cuts at FEMA and shifting duties over to the states.
The agency also faced allegations of dysfunction and delay under the leadership of the recently fired DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
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