‘Haters gonna hate’: A top FEMA official defends his claim that he was teleported | CNN Politics

The top official in charge of the federal government’s disaster response has taken to social media to double down on his claim that he’s experienced “teleportation” – an experience he insists was real and connected to his religious beliefs – while also saying his remarks have been taken out of context. “Haters gonna hate,” Gregg Phillips, a senior official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, wrote in one comment defending himself earlier this month. “I know what I’ve experienced,” he wrote in another post, in what appeared to be a poem where he refers to people ridiculing what they don’t understand and to Jesus Christ rising from the dead. CNN previously reported that Phillips, who serves as associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA, described in a podcast last year multiple episodes in which he said he was suddenly teleported miles away — including once to a Waffle House roughly 50 miles from where he had been. CNN also reported Phillips had a history of violent rhetoric towards public officials. He said in a podcast last year that he’d like to punch “that b*tch” in the mouth, referring to former President Joe B