It appears that the Trump administration does not do even the most cursory examination of someone’s past before appointing them to important offices in the government. Otherwise how can you explain how a nutjob like Gregg Phillips was made head of the the office of response and recovery at FEMA, the federal agency tasked with responding to natural disasters and other emergencies?

Gregg Phillips, who in December was appointed to lead Fema’s office of response and recovery, has spoken on “multiple podcasts” about being teleported against his will, CNN reported on Friday.

On a January 2025 podcast appearance, Phillips claimed that his car was “lifted up” while he was driving and transported 40 miles away into a ditch near a church. And in another instance on the same episode, Phillips said he was teleported 50 miles away to a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia, CNN detailed in a deep dive into Phillips’ past public statements.

“I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. 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,” Phillips said on the podcast Onward, co-hosted by rightwing activist Catherine Engelbrecht.

Phillips added: “And they said, ‘where are you?’ and I said, ‘A Waffle House.’ And: ‘a Waffle House where?’ And I said: ‘Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.’ And they said: “‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”

Here is video of him talking about it.

A cynic (like me) may suspect that finding yourself inexplicably in strange places, like in a ditch 50 miles from where you last remembered, might be because you were drunk or on drugs.

He says that he has been teleported more than once. But don’t worry. He does not treat teleportation casually.

But Phillips did warn about the dangers of teleportation.

“Teleporting is no fun,” he said “You know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”

On the plus side, responding to emergencies requires moving people and supplies quickly to the affected areas. Someone who knows how to teleport would be able to do that much better. So maybe they did vet him and felt that this made him ideal for the position, except for the fact that he seems to have been teleported without his consent. But while he did not teleport himself, he may be in touch with those who can do so and they can assist him at FEMA.

But what might have really swung the decision in Phillips’s favor are his other views.

On other podcast appearances, Phillips suggested that both Covid-19 and the vaccine for it were designed to kill people, and also claimed that Department of Homeland Security officials were “planning the next assassination attempt” of Donald Trump after a failed attempt on the US president’s life in 2024.

So who cares if he is nuts? As long as he parrots the insane MAGA conspiracies, he’s alright in their book

The really strange thing is that the Trump administration is so weird and so far out there that this makes barely a ripple in the news cycle.