Dr. Phil says the Trump administration gave him private access to government UFO files before they were made public.
Speaking to NewsNation, the television host said officials wanted his unfiltered opinion on how the public could respond to the possibility that humanity may sit ‘somewhere different in the food chain’ of the universe.
According to Dr. Phil, he was brought in because the White House was looking for an independent perspective rather than a prepared talking point.
“I think the reason they’re giving me access to this is because they want me doing exactly what I’m doing,” he said on the network’s program Reality Check, in an episode released Tuesday.
“I have maintained independence in what I’m doing. They’re not scripting me. They’re not telling me what to say and not say.”
Dr. Phil’s comments came as the Trump administration’s broader UFO disclosure effort has continued to expand, with the public release portal now listing four tranches of declassified material and the latest drop dated July 10, 2026. The files include reports and imagery from multiple agencies, and officials have said some details remain withheld to protect eyewitness identities, sensitive facilities and unrelated military information.
After reviewing the material, he said he was left believing the records support the idea of a government ‘cover-up’ related to what is really known about UFO encounters.
He also argued that officials had kept the full picture from President Trump, comparing the treatment of the president to that of a ‘temp employee’.
“That infuriates me,” he said. “How dare they do that? I don’t think that’s right and I think we deserve better.”
Dr. Phil further said that releasing information about UFOs without proper framing could have serious emotional, spiritual and ethical consequences, including panic or opportunistic doomsday schemes.
“I think it needs to be provided with context and I think that the American public is prepared to handle that,” he continued. “I think we as a government need to be prepared to help those that have a difficult time with it.”
The federal government has now released four sets of documents on UFOs, more formally described by officials as unidentified anomalous phenomena, with the latest group published this month. The public archive also shows the administration’s UAP transparency effort has been paired with ongoing updates from the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which continues to publish cases and imagery on a rolling basis.
Drawn from agencies such as the Pentagon, NASA and the CIA, the records span multiple years of reported events. Among them is a 2025 incident in which a military sensor reportedly detected ‘an area of contrast resembling a six-pointed star’ above the Yellow Sea near China.
Some of what was included in the newest release had already appeared in earlier disclosures.
Still, some researchers in the field say the newly published files have not lived up to the hype and have added little to what the public already knows.
Donald R. Schmitt, an investigator at the International U.F.O. Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico, told The New York Times earlier this month that the latest release followed a familiar pattern.
“It’s nothing new,” he said. “It’s the same game that they have played all these years. Once again, we’re getting the carrot dangled in front of us.”
That criticism reflects wider dissatisfaction over how the administration has handled other major document disclosures, including records connected to JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. and Epstein, where critics have similarly said promised revelations fell short.