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.”

Update, July 1, 2026: She won. Kiros defeated Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), the 15-term incumbent and most senior member of Colorado’s delegation, 48.6% to 44.2% in the June 30 primary — a result this page laid out in advance, and now reports below in full, including her victory-night vow to “take the fight to Donald Trump.” What follows is the original pre-primary reporting on what Kiros said, who backed her, and what Democrats trying to stop her argued; the update is in §06.

• “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 (D) — 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 million into 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 vote to 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.

The Associated Press called Colorado’s 1st Congressional District primary for Melat Kiros at 10:03 p.m. on June 30 — Kiros 48.6%, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) 44.2%, a roughly 5,000-vote margin. DeGette, in Congress since 1997, becomes the third sitting House Democrat toppled by a democratic-socialist primary challenger in eight days, after two upsets in New York the week before. Kiros is now all but assured of Denver’s congressional seat in November, in a district Democrats have not lost in decades.

In her victory speech, Kiros did not soften the platform this page documented before the vote. She told supporters: “We will not wait to take the fight to Donald Trump and the oligarchy,” and pledged to “abolish ICE and pass Medicare for all,” “get big money out of our politics,” “reject corporate PACs like AIPAC,” and “end the genocide in Palestine” — the same framing of Israel and Oct. 7 that drew the in-party criticism detailed in §02.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who endorsed Kiros before the primary, celebrated the win as proof the movement that powered DSA-backed victories in New York City had “traveled west.” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) took a notably more measured line than Sanders both before and after the result — telling reporters the day before the vote only that it was “a close race” that would be decided “in the hands of the people of Denver,” and that DeGette “has had an extraordinary career” and was “forcefully making her case.” Jeffries did not repeat DeGette’s “shocked and disgusted” language about the 9/11 comments, and by the next morning was congratulating the newly elected democratic-socialist class rather than relitigating the primary — the same posture he took after the earlier New York upsets. The Democratic leader now has to find a way to manage a growing bloc he does not fully control heading into a midterm where his party needs a net gain to retake the House majority.

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The Denver result is now the third leg of a pattern national Democrats are struggling to manage. The week before, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and the Democratic Socialists of America helped power Darializa Avila Chevalier (D), a 32-year-old democratic socialist, past five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) in NY-13. But even inside her own state party, Chevalier drew open distance: the chair of the New York State Democratic Party told reporters Chevalier “hasn’t asked for my endorsement,” and called some of her past social-media posts “reprehensible” — a sitting state party chair publicly declining to embrace his own nominee. The Hill’s post-Colorado analysis called it a “far left” victory streak “extending” into Denver, while cautioning that DSA still faces tests in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida before the pattern can be called a national realignment rather than a run of wins concentrated in deep-blue enclaves.

“Heartbreak for Hakeem Jeffries: Another "Democratic" Socialist Topples an Incumbent — This Time in Colorado.”

RedState, June 30, 2026

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Last updated July 1, 2026