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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Ax Files, with your host David Axelrod.

While most of us were celebrating a new year, Congressman Jamie Raskin and his family were marking a horrific memory.

The one-year anniversary of the death by suicide of his beloved son Tommy.

Few days after that tragedy, Raskin found himself amid the bedlam of an insurrection on Capitol Hill, which led to his lead role in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

Congressman Raskin, who was currently a member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection, has written a searing memoir of his personal and public traumas called Unthinkable, and indeed they were.

I sat down with him this week to explore those stories.

And let me add, as we do from time to time, for those who are suffering with depression, who are dealing with suicidal thoughts, please reach out for help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

That's 1-800-273-8255, and now my conversation with Congressman Jamie Raskin.

Congressman Jamie Raskin, it's so good to see you.

Normally, I would say to my guests the first episode of the year, I'd say Happy New Year.

This must have been a really tough new year for you and your family, the anniversary of the passing of your son, and leading right into the mayhem of January 6th in which you were to which you were exposed, and some family members were exposed.

Tell me how you're doing.

Well, thank you, David, for having me, and for saying that. It's been a tough several days here for Sarah and me and our daughter, Hannah and Tapatha and Hank and Ryan and our whole extended family.

It's just very tough. It is a wrenching loss for us not to have Tommy with us.

He was just the life of the party and a totally abuelient and hysterically funny and brilliant young man, and our life is poor without him.

You've written this very, very poignant and powerful book called Unthinkable, and it's really a saga of love and trauma.

It's love and trauma in two parts. Love for your beloved son who you lost to suicide a year ago, and love for democracy to which you've devoted your life and in the trauma of the events that that followed in which you were deeply involved.

I want to talk about all of that, but I want to set the stage by talking a little bit about your extraordinary family history. You like I come from an immigrant Jewish immigrant family, and they all migrated to the Midwest.

We have a new family zoom environment with like a couple hundred people who get together, and most of them are people who grew up in the Midwest.

Of course, I was born on the East Coast and have spent most of my life in Maryland or in DC, but my grandfather Benjamin, after whom I was named, was a plumber, and he was one of, I think it was 10 children.

There were eight sons and two daughters. They were very politically active in the Midwest, and it was the same thing with my mother's family. They were from Minnesota, and my maternal grandfather was the first Jewish person ever elected to the Minnesota legislature.

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