Former Sen. Ben Sasse, living with terminal cancer, sees an opportunity in living on a deadline

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. He sees an opportunity in living on a deadline. 

"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 is now battling five cancers, including lung, vascular and liver cancer.

He's in a clinical trial for a drug called daraxonrasib, a new idea in therapy. In many cancers, it's a defective gene that signals cells to grow nonstop. The drug blocks that signal. 

"I have much, much less pain than I had four months ago when I was diagnosed, and I have a massive 76% reduction in tumor volume over the last four months," he said. 

Just this month, the drugmaker, Revolution Medicines, reported that patients on the drug survived a median 13 months, compared to roughly six months for patients on chemotherapy.

Sasse attributes his endurance to the "miracle" 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," Sasse 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 

Sasse, a Republican who represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 2015 to 2023, remains deeply invested in the future of America.

"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 said neither political party is properly focusing on the challenges America will face in the coming decades. He cited artificial intelligence and the digital revolution as needing more consideration in particular. 

"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 thinks Americans should focus more on their local communities rather than national politics. 

"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 sees political dysfunction at the national level as "an echo of larger problems." 

"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," Sasse said. 

On a national level, he's calling for Congress to be less focused on political posturing, and more on deliberation. Sasse said he believes having cameras "everywhere in Washington" has made lawmakers focus on "sound bites" instead of substance. 

"That's not what the Senate is for," Sasse said. "The Senate should be plodding, and steady, and boring, and trustworthy."

Sasse's legacy in Washington, at home

In 2023, Sasse, with four years left in his second term, resigned to become president of the University of Florida. His voice has been missed in Washington by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. 

Sasse is fearless and passionate, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. Thune lauded Sasse's focus on the future and said he's an example of what a lawmaker should look like. 

"And hopefully, you know, an inspiration and example that many of us can learn from and follow," Thune said. 

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who worked with Sasse on the Intelligence Committee, said the former lawmaker was never focused on political labels, but instead thought about issues in terms of "future, past." 

For Sasse, being a senator was never the most important 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," Sasse 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."

A top calling for Sase has been his family. Sasse and his wife, Melissa, have been married for 31 years. 

"We're going to be apart for a time," Sasse said. "But she's tough and gritty and theologically rooted, and she's going to be fine." 

Sasse wishes he could be there when his daughters, who are both in their 20s, get married and as his son, 14, 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," he added.