In the wake of her primary victory on Tuesday evening in Colorado’s first congressional district, conservatives and social media users expressed alarm at Melat Kiros’s comments about the 9/11 terror attacks.
“This is light-years worse than AOC beating 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley,” Steve Guest, a GOP strategist, said in a post to X, referring to the rise of progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“This is the Democrat party,” Guest added.
Kiros has suggested the U.S. invited the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 that left nearly 3,000 Americans dead. Those views, compounded with other statements that have seemed to rationalize acts of violence, have sparked backlash as she looks poised to capture a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and further cement the momentum of the far-left flank of the Democratic Party.
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When asked if the 9/11 attacks had been avoidable, Kiros said she believed the U.S. had made them “inevitable” through its foreign policy.
“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,” Kiros said in an interview.
“SICK!” the Republican National Committee (RNC) wrote online, highlighting the comments.
Benny Johnson, a conservative media personality, pointed to Kiros’ win as evidence that the Democratic Party had conceded to candidates with extreme positions.
“She is a socialist who was born in Ethiopia. Melat also thinks America deserved 9/11. It isn’t just happening in New York; Democrats are losing their entire party,” Johnson said in a post, alluding to the victory of other socialist candidates with similar views.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., also echoed Johnson’s thinking.
“One radical lunatic after the next is coming to Washington. Why would we ever want to empower someone who believes 9/11 is America’s fault?”
On her website, Kiros shares platform items that are commonly held by many radical progressives: Medicare-for-all, ending “all wars,” abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and universal childcare.
“As someone who’s working as a barista to pay for school and health care, I know what it’s like to work so hard to get ahead while Washington is so far behind,” Kiros said in a campaign video.
But it’s her views on Israel and U.S. foreign relations that have set her apart from many other candidates, including DeGette.
Kiros, a Ph.D. student and lawyer, was fired from a New York firm in 2023 after publishing an open letter, arguing that anti-Israel student protesters calling for the elimination of Israel were not antisemitic and appearing to defend Hamas.
She has also described the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against the Jewish state as the “inevitable consequence of apartheid” and declined to characterize the deadly firebombing of protesters in Boulder last year who were urging the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza as antisemitic.
“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros told Colorado’s 9News in a recent television interview. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed.”
Like other onlookers, Clay Travis, the conservative founder of OutKick, a sports and pop culture website, said he feared that Kiros’ victory would only lead to more far-left momentum elsewhere.
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“That’s four incumbents losing primaries to socialists in a week. Every state now has a Mamdani [and] the Democrat Party is on a rapid descent to Communism,” Travis wrote.
Kiros will face Republican challenger Christy Peterson, a local accountant, in the state’s general election on Nov. 3.
