ICYMI: Senators Kelly, Curtis Host Bipartisan Town Hall on Political Violence at Utah Valley University

The event took place where Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September

Watch the conversation here

Last night, at Utah Valley University (UVU), Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and John Curtis (R-UT) hosted a bipartisan town hall in partnership with UVU's Herbert Institute for Public Policy to discuss political violence and hear from the university's community after the assassination of Charlie Kirk there in September. The discussion was moderated by CNN's Dana Bash and streamed on CNN All Access.

As Gabby Giffords' husband and as a U.S. Senator, Kelly has been working to address political violence for years. After the Charlie Kirk tragedy, Kelly and Curtis decided to host this conversation to support the community and show the country that Democrats and Republicans can disagree on issues while still working to bring Americans together.

During the conversation, both senators discussed their Algorithm Accountability Act, legislation they're working on together to hold big tech accountable for the harm that their algorithms cause on Americans.

Senator Kelly and Senator Curtis talk to CNN's Dana Bash, who moderated the UVU town hall.

Watch the full town hall here. Read key excerpts below:

On the idea of doing this event together…

"It didn't take me long to accept the invitation to be here. What happened here in this community at this university two months ago I know keeps many of you up at night still, and I get that from personal experience with what happened to my wife, Gabby-it is a traumatic and shocking experience, especially for the students that were there. John and I spoke to a number of them today, and it's a road to recover from this. And I think it's important to recognize that you can't allow this one event to define this university and this community, and you got to figure out a way through that. And I think this conversation might just be the start of trying to move back in a better direction."

On Kelly's reaction to Kirk's assassination…

"When I heard that he'd been shot, I had a similar kind of reaction. […] And then I saw the video, and at that point, I immediately thought about his wife, Erica, and I didn't know if he had children, but later found out that he did, and that she's going to spend the rest of her life without her husband, and these kids without their dad, and it is such a horrific thing to happen to any family. […] I did not agree with him on much, but I'll tell you what. I will go to war to fight for his right to say what he believes."

On disagreeing better…

"Even if you disagree with somebody doesn't mean you put a wall up between you and them. […] In the world we live in today, people getting a lot of their information from a huge wide range of places, there is a tendency to just go off in a certain direction, and social media has compounded that. But I really think what people have to understand is that we're going to have disagreements, but we don't have to be disagreeable. You can have a relationship with somebody in your family, at work, in your community, and you can be on different sides of an issue. It's okay to do that."