Former Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse credited “providence, prayer, and a miracle drug” for how he is still alive as he is dying from pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to four other regions.
Sasse, who left Washington early to become the president of the University of Florida, discussed his terminal diagnosis in a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday. Sasse was later diagnosed in December 2025 with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and given a ticking clock by his doctor.
“In mid-December I was given a three- to four-month life expectancy. I am on extended time already,” Sasse said in the interview.
Sasse thanked God and the clinical trial he is in for a breakthrough cancer drug called Daraxonrasib for his extended time with his family.
“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,” Sasse said.
Daraxonrasib works by inhibiting the activity of RAS proteins, which are cell growth regulators that can cause constant cancer cell proliferation when mutated. The clinical trial drug blocks the signaling pathways through which these proteins grow.
In a mid-April press release, the company conducting clinical trials of Daraxonrasib, called Revolution Medicines, announced that the drug produces a median overall survival of 13.2 months. This is nearly double the median overall survival for chemotherapy, pinged at 6.7 months.
Sasse is currently battling pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to lung, vascular, liver, and other cancers. He has five types.
In a discussion about how his faith intertwines with his health, Sasse told 60 Minutes that although “death is evil,” he has taken some positives out of his terminal diagnosis, maintaining that the fact he was diagnosed with cancer 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,” Sasse said
“I tell a lot more truth to myself than I used to do it when I thought I was super omni-competent and interesting,” Sasse continued.
Sasse, who stepped down from his second term in the Senate to go back to leading universities, also reflected on how his diagnosis has made him think differently about Capitol Hill. He told the outlet that “Congress is not wrestling with big or important questions right now.”
He argued that Congress should be focusing on how the digital revolution in the age of artificial intelligence will disrupt our workforce in the coming decades. He said that “the disruption of work, for good and for ill, should be front and central.”
BEN SASSE’S CANCER: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE TREATMENT CAUSING HIS FACE TO BLEED
“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,” Sasse said.
Sasse stepped back from his presidency role at the University of Florida in 2024 after his wife’s epilepsy diagnosis. Sasse and his wife have three children.