Two dads. Good friends. Divergent political views.

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman for Illinois, and Fred Guttenberg, a gun safety advocate whose daughter Jaime Guttenberg was murdered in the Parkland school shooting in 2018, have come together for their “Two Dads Defending Democracy” tour.

“Fred and I still disagree on damn near everything and look, we’ve got a big election this year, no matter who wins in November, we’re going to be even more divided,” Walsh said. “If we don’t get off of this road where we treat the people who we disagree with as our mortal enemies, Fred and I don’t believe our democracy can stand.”

Walsh and Guttenberg previously argued back-and-forth on social media for years before eventually meeting in-person and having a conversation, which eventually sprouted into a friendship.

“It led to this unexpected conversation between us where we realized, we’re two dads with families we love, with people in our lives who we care about and want to keep safe, and we started to have a conversation from that perspective,” Guttenberg said.

Their upcoming moderated conversation at Dominican University in River Forest on Tuesday at 7 p.m. is part of their efforts to bridge the political divide in the U.S.

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Contact Eunice Alpasan: @eunicealpasan | 773-509-5362 | [email protected]