Greg Palast talks about his recent article, “Mr. Colbert, I’m not laughing anymore.” Palast investigates far right activist Gregg Phillips, recently appointed as associate administrator of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, who claims he was tele-transported to a Waffle House. Phillips is the discredited conspiracy theorist behind the group True the Vote, whose film, “2,000 Mules” claims that Jewish billionaires paid black men to stuff ballot boxes in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit—causing Trump to lose the 2020 presidential election. True the Vote challenged over 300,000 voters in the 2024 election and is preparing to do the same in the 2026 midterm election this November.
SCOTT HARRIS: Right now, I’m very happy to welcome to our program and welcome back I should say, our good buddy, Greg Palast, filmmaker and investigative journalist, author of several New York Times bestsellers that you know, including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Greg’s film, “Vigilantes Incorporated,” exposed massive GOP voter suppression in Georgia and other states. And we’ve invited Greg here this evening to talk about his recent article titled, “Mr. Colbert”—referring to Steven Colbert, actually the late night talk host who’s about to be fired and it says—”Mr. Colbert, I’m not laughing anymore.” And this is all about Greg’s recent investigation on FEMA’s associate administrator of the Office of Response and Recovery, Greg Phillips, that we’re going to talk about in a moment here. Greg, thank you so much for making time for us again.
GREG PALAST: Always glad to be with you, Scott.
SCOTT HARRIS: Yep. And we’re always glad that you’re here. So Greg Phillips, here’s a guy who he wrote about his bizarre claims that he says he was magically teleported from his home or a car to a Waffle House restaurant 40 miles away. But there’s more important news. Now the comedians all picked up on this FEMA, this high-up FEMA official. I think he’s in the second most important Federal Emergency Management Agency, right? FEMA’s real important, but he’s a guy who’s talking about teleportation. But there’s another part of this story that is even more important and maybe even more bizarre.
GREG PALAST: That’s correct. I think one of the things all the late night hosts jumped on is that this guy, Greg Phillips, said he teletransported. He just somehow ended up at a Waffle House. And then he had another time he said that he was at a Lowe’s hardware store. And before he knew it, he woke up two hours later at a McDonald’s parking lot with a Big Mac on his lap. And then another time, he was going to get hit by a car or he was in a car and he was going to slam into another car. But his dead girlfriend’s ghost showed up in his car and lifted him over the car he was about to ram into. I mean, this is wonderful. And we can laugh about it. And by the way, I do laugh about it, but that’s not the point. How’d this guy end up as number two at FEMA or number three, depending on how you’re counting?
This is the guy who elected Donald Trump president. And if you go to GregPalast.com, read my stories on the manipulation in the last election, this is the guy who created the film, “2000 Mules,” which was launched at Mar-a-Lago and it’s the film which claimed that Jewish billionaires (Mark) Zuckerberg and (George) Soros are paying $10 each to black men to stuff illegal ballots in ballot drop boxes. And that’s no joke. I mean, well, it’s a joke, I suppose, so that’s a film that has had tremendous impact. And in fact, if you could say anything, it’s that he’s the guy who elected Trump and at Mar-a-Lago, Trump even thanked him for coming up with this. So what’s happened is, so True the Vote has done two things that you need to know about. SCOTT HARRIS: And he’s the founder of True the Vote.
GREG PALAST: He’s one of the founders of True The Vote and he’s the one who has said that literally 2,000 black men, whom he calls 2000 mules, were stuffing ballot boxes being paid by Jewish billionaires $10 each to stuff those ballot boxes. And that’s why Trump lost Georgia in 2020. He lost Arizona in 2020 and Wisconsin in 2020 and Michigan in 2020. But in fact, I have to tell you, I’ve asked this group and so has the Republican—Republican, I want to emphasize this Republican secretary of Georgia—and others say, “Okay, you say that there are hundreds of thousands of ballots illegally cast, 2,000 black men.” I’m not looking for 2,000 names of the black men, because after all, just so you know, when you cast a ballot in drop boxes a videotape, every single drop box in America has a video camera above it. People think it’s an idea, you just kind of photocopy a ballot and stuff in the ballot boxes.
No. If you are in states (that) do mail-in balloting, look at your envelope. Every envelope has a barcode. That’s individual to you. Your vote, how you voted is private. But the fact that you did vote is not private, that’s public. Every single mail-in ballot or a ballot that you would put in a drop box in America has a unique barcode that’s you. They literally, the state of Georgia went twice through every single ballot in a dropbox in 2020. They didn’t find one single illegal voter. And if you look at my film, my film is “Vigilantes, Inc.,” which you can, by the way, watch … It’s entertaining. Watch this film for free. Go to Gregpalast.com or go to YouTube, look for Vigilantes Incorporated, “Vigilantes Inc.” with Greg Palast and you will see that the only guy they kept showing … they said one guy they showed on camera in that film.
This is important because this is a key to Trump’s election. They said this one guy that they were showing is African American casting a ballot. He put in two ballots into a dropbox. Literally they said—and this is Charlie Kirk too, who was there in this discussion—that this is OJ Simpson leaving the scene of the crime. What they were showing was a video of a black man putting two ballots in a drop box. Turns out his name is Mark Andrews. He’s a Verizon executive. He was putting in his ballot and his wife’s ballot. And they said this guy cast 28 illegal ballots and they have the videotape. But they showed the videotape, just this one tape again and again, this guy putting in his ballot with his wife’s ballot. And you’re allowed to drop off your family ballots. That’s the story.
So this guy, Greg Phillips, forget all the fun and games … forget all the fun and games about this guy going to the Waffle House or teletransported McDonald’s. He teletransported into Trump-crazy. And it’s not small because the effect of this guy’s work has been to cut the number of drop boxes available to voters in America. And let me tell you, they know what they’re doing. Black people use those drop boxes. Seventy-four percent of African Americans vote early, either through mail-in drop box or in-person early voting. They know exactly what they’re doing. And what happened was that the number of drop boxes, for example, in Georgia, because of this film were cut by 75 percent in Atlanta and Savannah, the two black cities. Yet in the white areas, they actually increased the number of ballot drop boxes.
We’re talking Jim Crow here. So you can laugh, Mr. Colbert, about this guy Phillips, and teletransporting to a McDonald’s. In other words, it’s like the aliens apparently, they’re kind of like an Uber, but they bring you to the fast food instead of the fast food to you. So apparently the space aliens do an inverted Uber thing and we could laugh. But this is one of the key reasons why Donald Trump officially won the 2024 election.
SCOTT HARRIS: So Greg, in addition to True the Vote and their impact with his film on several Republican-controlled states and them cutting back on drop boxes where black and likely Democratic voters cast their ballots, they’ve also been engaged as you write about and your film talks about regarding Georgia, this group and other affiliated Republican groups are challenging tens, hundreds of thousands of voters in another effort to suppress the votes of people, again, likely to vote for Democrats.
GREG PALAST: Well, yeah. Okay. So here’s the other thing that this guy Greg Phillips does besides getting big from spaceships. Greg Phillips is the technical guy behind massive—over a third of a million voters in 2024 were challenged and their right to vote. Now, who is Greg Phillips to challenge anyone besides a guy who goes to McDonald’s via a spaceship?
He’s also behind targeting two million. Can I emphasize that? Targeting two million voters whose names he’s put online and says these people need to be challenged. And what they’ve done is his group, which is called True the Vote, again supported by Donald Trump, True The Vote has has gotten 40,000 volunteers. I want to repeat that, 40,000 volunteers to use Jim Crow laws in certain states: Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, other states where you personally can challenge the right of someone to vote.
So for example, I can say, if I was a Connecticut voter, I could say, “Don’t let Scott Harris vote.” He doesn’t really live here. He shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Who am I? I’m not a government agency. I’m not anything, but this is what this man has done. And for example, in my film, “Vigilantes, Inc.,” it opens up with a woman, this Republican operative in Georgia, who personally, personally challenged 32,000 voters in Cobb County. And that’s one of the reasons why Donald Trump won Georgia in the last race, having lost before, because this massive attack of voters. And let me give you a couple names.
One of the voters attacked by Greg Phillips— a teletransporter to a Waffle House, the guy who teletransported to the Waffle House—challenged the vote of (U.S. Army) Maj. Gamaliel Turner. Now, Turner is a guy who lives near Fort Benning, Georgia. He’s a career military Pentagon expert. He was assigned to the state of California by the commander-in-chief, Mr. Trump. And when he asked for his absentee ballot, because he was a soldier … Now, I should mention he’s an African-American soldier. An African-American soldier asked for his absentee ballot and he said, “Mr. Turner, you can’t get your ballot because you’ve been challenged.” He said, “What does that mean?” He said, “Oh, no problem. Just come into our office.” He said, “I’m 2,700 miles away. I’m supposed to go travel 2,700 miles just to prove I’m a citizen of the United States, an African American, so I can vote?” By the way, he did. He actually went to 5,000 some miles roundtrip to get his one vote counted.
But unfortunately—thousands, thousands!—we know 4,000 black soldiers out of Fort Benning were denied their right to vote. And that’s how Trump won Georgia and Arizona and Nevada. That’s what happened. That’s the problem. So this guy, Greg Phillips, you can laugh, Mr. Colbert, but he’s far more powerful and important than you because he elected the president of the United States and he could win this next midterm election (picks) in 2026 with his mass challenge operation. This is no joke, Scott. This is no joke and it’s not reported in the U.S. It’s barely touched on.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Greg, we only got like two minutes left. And I want to ask you and this is always the big question that is hard to answer sometimes. And that is, how do people who want a fair election on either side, Democrats or Republic—just right down the middle—to be fair, how is it possible to push back on this massive attack on the election system by challenging these hundreds of thousands, if not more voters?
GREG PALAST: Okay. There’s two things I’m going to suggest. The first thing is, my friends, between 15 and 60 days before an election, go online to vote.org or a local secretary of state and make sure you are still registered. I can tell you, I was actually removed from the voter rolls of California. I don’t know why.
But you go on and see if you’re still registered. I’m not kidding you. Twenty-four million people get flushed from the voter rolls every year. Now, some of them should be because they moved, they’re dead or whatever. But you should check your own voter registration and those of the people you love to make sure they can vote. And the second thing is to expose the trickery. So go to Gregpalast.com or YouTube and grab some popcorn, watch “Vigilantes, Inc.,” and then send that on to everyone you know. You get challenged. And so you don’t end up going to the polling station: “They said, “Oh, your name’s on the voter roll.” Well, on Election Day, it’s a very bad time for you to start screaming and hollering about, “Why am I not on the voter rolls? I’ve been voting here for 18 years.”
I can’t tell you how many people tell me these stories … In fact, the worst story, frankly, is that Martin Luther King’s cousin, whose name is Christine Jordan, voting at the same place for 50 years, she was challenged the year she was going to have her 50th anniversary of voting in Atlanta. This is Martin Luther King’s cousin. They can knock out Martin Luther King’s cousin, they can mark out—they can get rid of you. Go check your darn registration at vote.org and watch the film, “Vigilantes, Inc.” and spread it around. As my executive producer Leonardo Caprio says, “Vote suppression is real.”
Subscribe to our Weekly Summary
