Leftist mega-streamer Hasan Piker never showed to a rally with local congressional candidate Melat Kiros after it was moved to the steps of the Colorado State Capitol.
It wasn't immediately clear why Piker skipped the event; another planned speaker, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, also withdrew, citing safety concerns.
The event was moved from an indoor to an outdoor location on short notice. Kiros accused the previously planned venue, the Ogden Theatre, of pulling out just before the event was supposed to take place.
Hundreds of people still attended the "Young, Bold and Unbought" rally on Sunday afternoon.
In an Instagram post, Kiros blamed incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette for disrupting the event, alleging she had “called up her donor class to silence us. The Ogden, Reelworks, Stanley Marketplace, all of them canceled our contracts at the last minute.”
James Owens, a spokesman for the DeGette campaign, denied that the congresswoman had pressured the venues to block Piker and Kiros.
“Obviously that claim is ridiculous,” he wrote in a text to Denverite. “If Melat Kiros wants to campaign with someone who said America deserved 9/11 we’d do nothing to stop her.”
Representatives for the venues did not immediately reply to requests for comments. Kiros is challenging DeGette in the Democratic primary on June 30.
Piker said that the U.S. “deserved 9/11” during a livestream in 2019, later saying it was “inappropriate.” He has been accused of antisemitism by Jewish organizations, including for his statements this year that he prefers Hamas to Israel because it is the “lesser evil.”
Piker contends that criticizing the Israeli government and its deadly military campaign in Gaza is anti-Zionist but not antisemitic.
State Sen. Julie Gonzales, an influential local Democrat, also dropped out of the rally.
Gonzales is challenging U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in the Democratic primary. She did not detail exactly why she pulled out, but alluded to tensions over Piker’s presence.
“Today, I am deciding to no longer participate in the rally with Hasan Piker. At no fault of the event organizers, multiple venues have cancelled at the eleventh hour, and I have been told that it was in violation of the venue contracts,” she wrote on Instagram.
Her post continued that “instead of holding the billionaires and the corporations they control to account, increasingly we are seeing the classic divide-and-conquer strategy that leaves us all less safe. Too many of us are all too familiar with the alarming rise in antisemitism and anti-Arab hate in Colorado, in the United States, and across the globe, which leaves many feeling like they do not have a home within our movement for safety, self-determination, and peace.”
Separately, Gonzales said that she pulled out because she was not confident the event could be managed safely after the change of venue.
"I’ve been an organizer for 20 years, and I have pulled together a lot of events on short notice. However, I decided not to participate today because there wasn’t enough time to effectively plan and ensure the safety of those present. I certainly won’t fundraise off such an event," she wrote in a text to Denverite.
Piker has nearly 3 million followers on the streaming platform Twitch. He’s caught the attention of Gen Z by streaming for eight hours almost daily, mostly talking about politics and internet culture.
Kiros, 29, previously joined Piker in a nearly hour-long conversation on his stream on May 9.
Part of their conversation was focused on Israel. Both Kiros and Piker have been outspoken about the U.S.-Israel relationship and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Following her appearance on the stream, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Colorado wrote an open letter to Kiros, criticizing her for what it called a lack of nuance.
“I was struck by how little nuance you brought to the topic of Israel compared to other parts of the interview. Throughout the conversation, you spoke thoughtfully about systems, context, and the dangers of simplistic worldviews,” the letter reads. “When discussing China, for example, you called for measured diplomacy and did not feel the need to reduce either the country or our relationship with it to its serious and ongoing human rights abuses. Yet when the subject turned to Israel, that instinct for complexity disappeared into moral certainty.”
The letter said Kiros spoke about Israel through a binary lens of power and oppression, rather than understanding history and trauma. It went on to state Kiros only mentioned the attacks on Oct. 7 as an “inevitable consequence of apartheid.”
Hamas killed close to 1,200 Israelis and took 251 more hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 70,000 people.
Kiros has been endorsed by at least one anti-Zionist Jewish group, Jewish Voice For Peace Action.
More broadly, Sunday's rally is being touted as a space for a new wave of Democrats to convene. Joining Kiros and Piker are Justin Pearson and Donavan McKinney, two young progressives running for Congress in Tennessee and Michigan, respectively. The rally's focus included causes like Medicare for All, immigrant dignity and affordable housing.
Editor's note: This is a developing story and will be updated.
