Former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, now 54 and dying of pancreatic cancer that has spread to his lungs, liver, and vascular system, sat for an extended interview in which he laid out what he believes Congress refuses to confront, and what matters most when time runs short.
Given a three- to four-month life expectancy in mid-December, Sasse said he is already on "extended time." He credits providence, prayer, and a clinical trial drug called daraxonrasib, which blocks a defective gene signal that causes cells to grow unchecked. The results, by his account, have been remarkable: a 76 percent reduction in tumor volume over four months and far less pain than when he was first diagnosed.
But Sasse did not use his interview to talk mostly about medicine. He used it to talk about what he sees as a country drifting away from the things that hold it together, local community, family, honest work, and a Congress willing to wrestle with hard questions instead of chasing camera time.
Sasse's political arc is unusual. In 2014, he was a college president in Nebraska when he was recruited to run for the Senate. He won. In 2020, he was reelected with more votes in Nebraska than Donald Trump received. He served on the Intelligence Committee alongside Democrat Mark Warner, who described Sasse's approach in striking terms.
Warner told reporters that Sasse "never really thought about things as conservative, liberal. He much more thought about issues as future, past."
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the South Dakota Republican, called Sasse "somebody who was fearless, passionate" and praised his "concern not just for today, but for tomorrow and the future. And someone who wasn't distracted by all the noise that goes around us on a daily basis."
In 2023, with four years left in his term, Sasse quit the Senate to become president of the University of Florida. His stated reason was blunt: too little substance in the Senate, too much time away from his wife, Melissa, and their three children. That kind of voluntary departure from Washington is rare enough to be noteworthy. In an era when high-profile departures from government often come amid controversy, Sasse simply said the job wasn't worth what it cost his family.
Sasse reserved his sharpest criticism for the institution he left behind. He did not single out one party. He indicted both.
"Neither of these parties really have very big or good ideas about 2030 or 2050, at a national security level, at a future of work level, at an institution-building level. The Congress is not wrestling with big or important questions right now."
When pressed on what Congress is missing, Sasse pointed to the digital revolution and artificial intelligence, forces he said are transforming the economy faster than elected officials can comprehend, let alone govern.
"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 gonna have that world again. And 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."
That assessment cuts across partisan lines, but it lands hardest on the people who hold power right now. Whether the issue is funding standoffs that drag on for weeks or committee hearings that produce more clips than legislation, Sasse's complaint is that the Senate has become a performance venue.
He proposed a specific fix: fewer cameras.
"The Senate needs to be less like Instagram. The Senate needs to be more deliberative. And that means less smack-down nonsense. One of the fundamental mistakes we've made over the last 30 or 40 years is putting cameras everywhere in Washington, D.C. This is not an argument against transparency. We should have reporters around. We should have pen and pad. We should have people recording what's happening. But we should make the Senate less of an institution that is built as a backdrop platform for people to get sound bites. That's not what the Senate is for. The Senate should be plodding, and steady, and boring, and trustworthy."
Asked what makes him a Republican, Sasse anchored his answer in Lincoln and Reagan, and in a philosophy of limited government that starts at the neighborhood level, not in Washington.
"I'm a Republican because I think the Lincoln, Reagan continuum does the best job of building constraint on thinking Washington is our fundamental political community. I think your fundamental political community is your neighborhood, and your city hall and maybe even your state legislature."
He went further, warning that too many Americans have made their federal political tribe their primary identity, something he called a distortion of what conservatism is supposed to mean.
Sasse's record includes a vote that put him at odds with much of his own party. He was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict in the impeachment trial following January 6th. That stand offended the Nebraska Republican Committee. On that day, he had called out what he described as "the screamers who monetize hate." In a message dated February 4, 2021, he wrote words that still carry weight.
"Personality cults aren't conservative. Conspiracy theories aren't conservative. Lying that an election has been stolen, it's not conservative. Acting like politics is a religion, it isn't conservative."
When asked about the current administration, Sasse declined to comment at length. "It's no secret that the current president and I wrestled on lots and lots of issues," he said. But he steered the conversation away from personalities and toward what he sees as the deeper problem.
"I think we have really thin, shallow community right now. And unless people know the thickness of their local community, it's hard to make sense of what national politics are for. I think our national political dysfunction is an echo of larger problems."
Sasse's cancer is pancreatic in origin and has metastasized to his lungs, liver, vascular system, and other sites. Interviewer Scott Pelley put it plainly: "You have five cancers." Sasse confirmed it.
When Sasse first disclosed his diagnosis publicly, he described it as a death sentence. "Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff," he said. But he also made clear he intended to fight, citing advances in immunotherapy and science as grounds for hope.
The drug daraxonrasib, made by Revolution Medicines, works by blocking a defective gene signal that causes cells to multiply without stopping. Just this month, Revolution Medicines reported that patients given six months to live survived a median of 13 months on the drug. Sasse said his own results, the 76 percent tumor reduction, go well beyond what he was told to expect.
The New York Post reported that Sasse shared his diagnosis on X, writing, "Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die." He added: "I'm not going down without a fight."
Newsmax noted that Sasse also pointed to "jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more" as one reason for hope alongside his faith.
Sasse is a reformed Christian, a Calvinist who believes God ordains everything. When Pelley asked why he thinks God put him to this test, Sasse's answer was characteristically direct.
"Death is wicked. Death is evil. Death is not how it's supposed to be. And me getting a cancer diagnosis, again, is pretty small on the grand scheme of things. But it's a touch of grace because it forces me to tell the truth. And the lie I wanna tell myself is that I'm the center of everything. And I'm gonna be around forever. And I can work harder, and store up enough, that I can atone for my own brokenness. I can't. And so, I hate cancer. But I'm also grateful for it."
He spoke at length about his family. He and Melissa have been married 31 years. His daughters are 24 and 22. His son is 14, a "providential surprise," a decade younger than his sisters. Sasse wants to walk his daughters down the aisle. He wants to put his arm on his son's shoulder at 16, 18, and 20. He knows the math on his "time card" probably won't allow it.
"My son, we have a providential surprise. He's a decade younger than big sisters. He's 14, and he's gonna be fine. He'll have other wise men and women to put a hand on his shoulder. But I'm super bummed to not be there at 16 and 18 and 20 years old in his life."
Asked whether God has a plan, Sasse did not hesitate: "Absolutely. There are no maverick molecules in the universe."
The interview also surfaced Sasse's view of what public service should be, and what it has become. When Pelley suggested that many senators could not survive without the title, Sasse did not disagree. But he pushed back hard on the premise that the title should matter that much. In an era of constant personnel churn at the highest levels of government, his words carry a certain clarity.
"We got a lotta 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. Bulls***. 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."
Sasse's interview is not comfortable for either party. Democrats will not enjoy hearing that their ideas about the future are as thin as the Republicans'. Republicans will not enjoy hearing a man from their own ranks say the Senate has become an Instagram set. And anyone who has made federal politics the center of their identity will bristle at being told it should rank somewhere around ninth or fifteenth on the list of things that matter.
Thune, the Senate majority leader, said he hopes Sasse's example will be "an inspiration" that "many of us can learn from and follow." Whether that hope is realistic is another question. Washington has a long track record of praising the departing and then going right back to the behavior they condemned. The same dynamics Sasse describes, the shallow community, the camera-driven posturing, the partisan standoffs that produce heat but little light, show no signs of fading.
Sasse himself seems to understand that. He said he does not claim special wisdom just because he is dying. "I don't know that I have a lot of wisdom," he said, "but I have a lotta things that I think we should be reflecting on together."
A man who walked away from the Senate because he thought his family and his university mattered more is now walking toward something harder. He is doing it with his faith, his wife of 31 years, and a clinical trial drug that is buying him time nobody expected. What he is asking of the rest of us is not complicated: know your neighbors, love your family, and stop pretending Washington is the center of the universe.
If it takes a dying man to remind the country of that, the country has a bigger problem than Congress.