At last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, National Harbor, Md., became the meeting ground for the all-stars of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Young influencers like Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk were the matinee idols and were complemented nicely with political heavies like President Trump, Vice President Pence, Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Internet stars Diamond and Silk and television personalities like Laura Ingraham and Mike Lindell — the My Pillow guy — were there, too. In short, every conservative who was any conservative was there.

And so was Van Jones.

Jones, a CNN analyst, is a stalwart progressive. Few have been more outspoken in their condemnation of conservatives and President Trump than him. On election night, after the shock of Trump’s win, he declared, “This was a white-lash against a changing country.”

But Jones was there to talk about one of the few bipartisan successes of the last two years. The First Step Act was an aggressive criminal justice reform bill aimed at reducing recidivism and refining sentencing laws and harsh penalties. It was signed into law by Donald Trump in December. Jones had been working with Jared Kushner and the Trump administration for months on moving the legislation forward.

The president’s determination to see the law through, in the face of resistance from his own party and administration, earned him a measure of respect from Jones. “He became, to the shock of everybody, the biggest, loudest champion on criminal justice and used his power to get something done,” Jones said on CNN. “I got 99 conflicts with the Trump administration; prisons are not one.”

And so there was Van Jones at CPAC last week, in the belly of the beast, in front of thousands of ideological opposites, having a civil conversation with Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

The audience applauded. Some stood. At one point some of the audience booed when they disagreed with a point Jones had made. But is was OK, because these were men sharing ideas and thoughts, and the progressive onstage was happy to admit that the process of working with a political nemesis — the Trump Administration and like-minded conservatives — had had a profound affect on him.

“As I’ve gotten to know more people working on this issue,” he told the CPAC audience, “my mind has been changed, my heart has been changed, my understanding of what we can do together has been changed and that needs to happen more.”

Hear, hear.

Congressman Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), who also supported the First Step Act, told Herald Radio Friday, “You at least have to talk to each other. … I’m so proud of Van going to CPAC. Standing in front of an audience that applauded and booed him at the same time.We all need to learn a lesson from that. Stand up for what we believe in but be in the room to have the conversation.”

Conversation. It was what compelled a Republican president to push progressive legislation. It was what opens the hearts and minds of women and men like Van Jones.

It is what is needed to heal this country.