A Colorado Socialist Called 9/11 “Inevitable.” On Primary Day, Denver Democrats May Send Her to Congress.

Asked on camera whether she believed the September 11, 2001 terror attacks — which killed nearly 3,000 Americans — were “the inevitable consequence of American foreign policy,” Melat Kiros, the Democratic Socialist (DSA) candidate for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in Denver, said yes. She had already called the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians “the inevitable consequence of apartheid.”

Pressed by 9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark on whether the 2025 firebombing of Jewish demonstrators in Boulder — an attack a man is now serving a life sentence for — was antisemitism, Kiros declined to say it was: “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator.”

Today, June 30, 2026, Denver Democrats decide whether to make her a member of Congress. Kiros is locked in a dead heat with Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), a 15-term incumbent — the most senior member of Colorado’s delegation — who calls her challenger’s remarks “shocked and disgusted” territory. This page lays out exactly what Kiros said, who is backing her, and what the establishment Democrats trying to stop her are saying.

• “Inevitable” — how Kiros described both the 9/11 attacks and the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, tying each to U.S. and Israeli policy in an on-camera 9NEWS interview · Source: Fox News; Mediaite
• ~3,000 dead — Americans killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks Kiros called the “inevitable consequence” of foreign policy · Source: Fox News
• 67% to 33% — Kiros’s margin over DeGette at the March Denver County Assembly — the first time DeGette lost a party vote in 30 years · Source: Colorado Politics
• 41% – 36% — Kiros’s lead over DeGette in a June Data for Progress poll commissioned by a PAC backing Kiros · Source: Newsweek
• $3.1 million — outside money spent in a single month on the Denver primary, much of it pro-Israel groups trying to stop Kiros · Source: The Intercept; CNN
• “I don’t know” — Kiros’s answer on whether the deadly 2025 Boulder firebombing of Jews was antisemitism — condemned by fellow Colorado progressives · Source: Colorado Sun; The Forward

The exchange came in a pre-primary sit-down with Kyle Clark of Denver’s 9NEWS (NBC affiliate). Kiros had previously appeared on the show of far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, where she described the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack — the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust — as “an inevitable consequence of apartheid, of occupation, decades of occupation.” Clark asked her whether she applied the same logic to 9/11.

She did. Asked directly if she believed the September 11 attacks were the inevitable consequence of American foreign policy, Kiros answered: “Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East that forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response.” She added that “our responsibility is to get rid of those conditions that lead to violence in the first place.” It is a framing — that mass-casualty terror against American and Israeli civilians is a predictable, even understandable, byproduct of Western policy — that put a self-described socialist on the brink of Congress squarely in the territory the activist left has normalized since 2023.

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On June 1, 2025, a man hurled Molotov cocktails and sprayed a makeshift flamethrower at a group of mostly Jewish demonstrators in Boulder who had gathered for their weekly walk to raise awareness of the hostages held by Hamas. He shouted “Free Palestine!” The attacker, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is now serving a life sentence. When Clark asked Kiros whether that was antisemitism, she would not say so — “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator… I don’t know what his intentions were.”

The refusal drew rare in-party rebuke. Three Colorado progressives — state Sen. Julie Gonzales (D), state Rep. Yara Zokaie (D), and attorney-general candidate David Seligman — publicly said the attack plainly was antisemitism. Jewish organizations told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency they were “really alarmed” that a candidate who would not name an anti-Jewish hate crime as such sat on the verge of a House seat. None of that is a criminal allegation against Kiros; it is a record of her own words and of the response from people in her own coalition.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)has represented Denver for nearly 30 years and has never faced anything like this. Her campaign turned Kiros’s 9/11 answer into an ad, and DeGette said she was “shocked and disgusted,” arguing that “9/11 wasn’t inevitable — it was an act of terror that killed thousands of Americans. Denver deserves a representative who stands with the victims, not one who rationalizes their deaths.”

That this is a Democrat-on-Democrat fight is the whole story. The political geography of the race is a heavily blue, Denver-based seat where the GOP is a non-factor; the only contest that matters is the June 30 primary. Outside groups poured a combined $3.1 millioninto the race in a single month, much of it from pro-Israel organizations spending to keep Kiros out of Congress — and much of it, in turn, fueling Kiros’s own argument that the establishment is buying the seat.

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“9/11 wasn't inevitable — it was an act of terror that killed thousands of Americans. Denver deserves a representative who stands with the victims, not one who rationalizes their deaths.”

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), responding to her primary challenger

The reason this matters is that Kiros is not a protest candidate polling at two percent. In March she stunned the party by taking 67 percent of the delegate voteto DeGette’s 33 percent at the Denver County Assembly — the first assembly DeGette had lost in three decades. A June Data for Progress poll, commissioned by a PAC supporting Kiros, showed her ahead 41 to 36. She has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats, and drew the national left’s online machine, including streamer Hasan Piker, into Denver.

Her platform is the DSA program in full: abolish ICE, Medicare for All, and a frank hostility to the defense and tech sectors — she said she was “excited” to see the data-analytics firm Palantir leave Colorado. National outlets cast the Denver race as the next test of whether the movement that powered socialist wins in New York can travel west. That makes the 9/11 and Boulder comments not a gaffe to be waved off, but a window into the worldview a major-party frontrunner would carry to Washington.

A candidate who called the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11 “inevitable,” who said the same of the October 7 massacre, and who would not call the firebombing of Jews in Boulder antisemitism, is not a backbencher on a fringe ballot line — she is the polling leader to represent Denver in the United States Congress, with a Bernie Sanders endorsement and the national socialist movement behind her. Her own party’s incumbent calls it disgusting; fellow Colorado progressives broke with her over Boulder; Jewish groups say they are alarmed. On June 30, Denver Democrats answer the only question that is actually in their hands: whether words like “inevitable” are disqualifying, or a credential. We will update this page when the result is certified.

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