Cancer has forced former Sen. Ben Sasse to tell himself the truth, he said. The 54-year-old, diagnosed late last year with stage-four pancreatic cancer, has already lived longer than doctors expected and says living on a deadline has become an opportunity.
“The lie I want to tell myself is that I’m the center of everything. And I’m going to be around forever. And I can work harder, and store up enough, that I can atone for my own brokenness. I can’t,” Sasse said. “And so, I hate cancer. But I’m also grateful for it. I tell a lot more truth to myself than I used to do it when I thought I was super omnicompetent and interesting.”
Terminal diagnosis
In December, Sasse was told he had three to four months to live. His pancreatic cancer had metastasized; he now says he is battling five cancers, including lung, vascular and liver cancers. He is enrolled in a clinical trial for daraxonrasib, a drug that blocks a defective gene signal that drives uncontrolled cell growth. Sasse reports “much, much less pain” than four months earlier and a “massive 76% reduction in tumor volume” over that period.
This month, drugmaker Revolution Medicines reported that patients on the drug survived a median 13 months, compared with roughly six months for patients on chemotherapy. Sasse attributes his endurance to the drug, providence and prayer.
“It’s weird to be in your early 50s and get a terminal diagnosis, and people all of a sudden act like you’re 93 or 94 and you have a lot of wisdom,” he said. “I don’t know that I have a lot of wisdom, but I have a lot of things that I think we should be reflecting on together.”
Sasse’s appeal for reason in Washington
A Republican who represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 2015 to 2023, Sasse remains deeply invested in America’s future. “I love America, and I think there’s a lot of big and meaty things that we should’ve been talking about, and we still can talk about,” he said.
He argues that neither party is properly focused on long-term challenges, especially the disruption from artificial intelligence and the digital revolution. “We’ve never lived in a world where 22-year-olds couldn’t assume that the work they did, they would be able to do until death or retirement. And we’re never going to have that world again,” Sasse said. “Congress doesn’t talk about any of those kind of most fundamental issues. The disruption of work, for good and for ill, should be front and central. Congress doesn’t even know how to have that conversation.”
Sasse urges Americans to prioritize local community over national political tribes. “We are sacrificing a lot of our national politics to weird folks who want their main community to be their political tribe at a federal level, and that should be like the ninth thing, or the 15th thing you care about, not the first or second thing,” he said. He called national political dysfunction an “echo of larger problems” and said that without strong local communities, it’s hard to understand the purpose of national politics.
On governance, Sasse implored lawmakers to move beyond constant performance for cameras and sound bites toward deliberation. “The Senate should be plodding, and steady, and boring, and trustworthy,” he said.
Legacy in Washington and at home
In 2023, with four years remaining in his second term, Sasse resigned to become president of the University of Florida. His absence has been felt in Washington by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Senate Majority Leader John Thune praised Sasse as fearless and passionate and said his focus on the future sets an example. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who worked with Sasse on the Intelligence Committee, said Sasse thought beyond partisan labels and considered issues in terms of “future, past.”
For Sasse, being a senator was never the highest calling. “We got a lot of people who serve in government who really do think the highest and greatest thing you can ever do is have the title senator or congressman,” he said. “Bull***t. The best thing you can do is be called dad or mom, lover, neighbor, friend. Governor? Senator? House member? It’s a great way to serve. It should be your 11th calling or maybe sixth, but never top.”
Family remains central. Sasse and his wife, Melissa, have been married 31 years. “We’re going to be apart for a time,” he said. “But she’s tough and gritty and theologically rooted, and she’s going to be fine.” He wishes he could be there when his daughters, both in their 20s, marry and when his 14-year-old son becomes an adult. “I want to give him more advice than he wants, and I want to put my arm on his shoulder, and I want his shoulders to get taller. But it’s not a surprise to God,” Sasse said. “There are no maverick molecules in the universe.”