A New Jersey Democrat running for Congress admitted she stopped attending church after President Donald Trump’s 2016 election — because she couldn’t stand sitting near people who voted for him.
Rebecca Bennett, the Democratic nominee for New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District, made the stunning admission at a February campaign event. Audio obtained by The Washington Free Beacon caught the former Navy pilot explaining her decision to leave her Presbyterian church.
“I cannot sit in this church full of people who voted for Trump.”
The confession came during a Q&A session with supporters. A woman who identified herself as “a former progressive Dem, now a moderate” asked Bennett about using the word “patriot” in her campaign messaging — worried others might hear it as “right-coded.”
Bennett doubled down on the term, then launched into her church story.
“I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and after Trump got elected, I stopped going to church for the first time in my life,” Bennett said. “At the time, I was stationed somewhere that was pretty conservative. I was still in the military at the time. I was like, ‘I cannot sit in this church full of people who voted for Trump.'”
She eventually returned to church — but only after deciding Trump voters don’t get to “decide what Christianity looks like.”
Bennett then escalated her rhetoric dramatically, claiming Trump supporters are “literally murdering Americans in broad daylight.”
“They do not get to decide what patriotism is,” she added. “You do not get to wrap yourself in the flag while you are literally murdering Americans in broad daylight.”
The audio reveals a Democratic candidate who couldn’t share a pew with voters whose political views differed from hers — and now frames those same Americans as murderers.
Bennett is seeking to represent New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District in the U.S. House.
