The Democrat Party has a communist problem, and one of its newest congressional nominees just shrugged it off on national television.
Melat Kiros, the openly Marxist Democratic Socialists of America candidate who recently toppled a longtime Democrat incumbent in Denver, Colorado, went on PBS and got asked a pretty simple question: are you a communist?
Her answer was no. But what came next is the part worth paying attention to.
A Shrug and a “Big Tent”
Kiros, who is running to represent Colorado in the House of Representatives, shrugged off concerns that communists are making her party look bad during a recent interview on PBS’s *Firing Line*, where host Margaret Hoover pointed out that President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned the country is doomed if communists take control.
Hoover quoted Trump directly: “In June, President Trump said these are ‘hardcore, godless communists. This is the most serious threat to our country since it’s existence.'” She then asked Kiros point-blank: “So first, are you a communist?” Kiros answered softly, “No, I’m not a communist.”
Hoover followed up: “How do you tackle the criticism that some members of the DSA, including half of the DSA leadership, seem to call themselves communist?”
Kiros replied: “Yeah, well you know, some members of the Democratic Party are proudly proclaiming themselves as capitalists.”
And then came the kicker.
“It’s a big tent, right?” she continued. “At the end of the day, it’s up to the voters. Until a self-proclaimed communist actually wins an election, than it’s just noise from the Republican Party.”
Read that again. The DSA’s own congressional nominee just told PBS that communists running on the Democrat ticket are not a problem worth addressing. They’re just “noise.”
What the DSA Actually Stands For
The Democratic Socialists of America is not a garden-variety progressive club. The openly Marxist organization recently released an updated platform that calls for a sweeping remake of the entire political system, including eliminating the US Senate and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The platform’s language calls for replacing the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress. That is not a reform proposal. That is a blueprint for dismantling the constitutional order that has protected American liberty for 250 years.
DSA National Co-Chair Megan Romer affirmed the organization’s support for replacing the presidency and Supreme Court, abolishing ICE, eventually eliminating national borders while granting amnesty to people living in the country illegally, defunding the Pentagon, phasing out prisons, and shifting most large corporations to public ownership.
She said all of that out loud. On Fox News. And she said it proudly.
When Fox News host Shannon Bream ran through the platform point by point, asking “Abolish the Senate?” Romer answered “True.” Asked “Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them?” Romer replied, “Yep.”
Government seizure of major corporations. Abolition of the Senate. Open borders as a “long-term plan.” These are textbook Marxist objectives, and the DSA is not hiding them. They are advertising them.
Whatever internal disagreements exist within the DSA, the organization’s members agree on their destination: eradicating America’s free market system and replacing it with a socialist one, featuring public ownership of entire industries and universal programs for housing, healthcare, and more.
And Kiros herself, when asked about the historical record of socialism paired with communism ending in mass death, had a ready answer. She told PBS that “the historical record is also one that doesn’t show the full story as well, right?” and claimed that “our country has a long and storied history of intervening and trying to prevent any kind of government that was trying to deliver back more power to working people from succeeding in any meaningful way.”
So the tens of millions who died under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot — that’s America’s fault. Got it.
The DSA Is Winning, and Trump Sees It Clearly
Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, defeated Rep Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District. DeGette had held that seat for nearly three decades.
Her win came alongside other DSA primary victories. Two candidates in New York — Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez — are card-carrying members of the DSA, just like NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who backed both of them in their primaries.
On July 4, 2026, the Democratic Socialists of America surpassed 120,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in United States history, surpassing the Socialist Party of America under Eugene Debs, which reached its peak dues-paying membership in 1912.
That is not a fringe movement. That is a growing political machine operating inside the Democrat Party, running candidates on openly Marxist platforms, and winning.
President Trump put it plainly at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s 2026 Policy Conference: “These are not Social Democrats. These are hardcore godless communists.”
His tone sharpened in the days that followed, when he said the communists had started to make “their move” in the USA. “The game is on,” Trump said.
Trump has continued to warn about socialism and communism, including calling it a “cancer” that must be dealt with immediately during his Fourth of July address.
And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) did not mince words either. “The Bolshevik takeover of the Democrat Party is in full swing, and communism is on the ballot this November against freedom,” he said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
Scalise noted the open warfare inside the Democrat Party itself: “They’re in public war with each other right now, and Bernie Sanders is winning. Bernie’s candidates are beating Hakeem’s candidates in Democrat primaries. In swing districts, it draws an incredibly sharp contrast between our incumbent Republicans against these communists.”
What Comes Next
Kiros’ casual dismissal of communism as “noise” is actually more revealing than anything else she said in that PBS interview. She is not alarmed by communists inside her organization because the DSA does not draw a hard line between democratic socialism and Marxist communism. The platform confirms that. The co-chair confirms that. The candidates confirm that.
As a candidate backed by the DSA and Senator Bernie Sanders, Kiros pledged to reject corporate PAC donations, end US military aid to Israel, abolish ICE, support the Green New Deal, and impose a nationwide moratorium on data centers. Every one of those positions flows directly from the DSA’s broader goal of expanding government control over the economy and dismantling the institutions that stand between the state and the individual.
The historical record on socialism is not ambiguous. Every major experiment in Marxist governance — the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba, Venezuela — produced the same results: economic collapse, authoritarian drift, shortages, and the systematic destruction of individual liberty. Kiros told PBS the record is incomplete because of American interference. But the countries that tried it most thoroughly, with the least outside interference, produced the worst outcomes.
The DSA’s own updated platform acknowledges that “complete victory” will require building a new society from the ground up. “We push these demands to their furthest extent today, so we can fight for their fullest realization in a socialist future,” it states.
But the voters of Colorado’s 1st Congressional District just sent Kiros to the general election. She faces Republican nominee Christy Peterson in November, and given Denver’s heavy blue lean, Kiros is highly likely to win the general election.
And when she gets to Washington, DC, she will bring the DSA’s full platform with her — the one that calls for abolishing the Senate, seizing corporations, opening the borders, and dismantling the constitutional order that Americans have lived under for two and a half centuries.
Big tent, indeed.
Sources: Mediaite, PBS Firing Line, Breitbart, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, The Hill, CPR News, Colorado Newsline, Scalise.house.gov