What matters? What really matters? On Uncommon Knowledge today, Ben Sass.

Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson. Benjamin Eric Sass grew up in Plainville, Nebraska

population today of about 1,250, earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard and a doctorate in history

at Yale. He represented Nebraska in the United States Senate from 2014 until 2023, when he became

president of the University of Florida, a role in which

he served until the middle of 2024.

This past December, Ben Sasse posted an announcement on X, quote, this is a tough note to

write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I'll cut to the chase.

Last week I was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.

Senator Sass has now begun treatment at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Ben, you've begun treatment.

You've also taken up a position at the American Enterprise Institute here in Washington.

You're here in Washington for a friend's wedding. You're recording a podcast. Instead of withdrawing

from the world, you are throwing all that you have left into it. How come? Well, first of all, my friend,

Peter, good to be with you. Thank you for having me. Let's be clear, I would like to be

throwing a lot more energy at it, and I'm withdrawn a lot because I sleep like 15 or 16 hours a day. So

I'll just acknowledge the embarrassment at how unproductive I am, but I'm on a lot of morphine.

You just had a piece in the Wall Street Journal three days ago. It was written on morphine.

And I think you can see that it's a drug addled piece. This is the Super Bowl party as the basis for American civics going forward.

I mean, we'll talk about big stuff and we'll talk about hopefully some gallows humor.

Our family is getting through a lot of this when you get a already metastasized cancer diagnosis that says you have cancer

and five kinds of organs already.

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