Ben Sasse, living with cancer, sees an opportunity in living on a deadline

60 Minutes Overtime Former Sen. Ben Sasse, living with terminal cancer, sees an opportunity in living on a deadline .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-60-minutes-overtime.jpg'); } By Scott Pelley, Scott Pelley Correspondent, 60 Minutes Scott Pelley, one of the most experienced and awarded journalists today, has been reporting stories for 60 Minutes since 2004. The 2024-25 season is his 21st on the broadcast. Scott has won half of all major awards earned by 60 Minutes during his tenure at the venerable CBS newsmagazine. Read Full Bio Scott Pelley, Aliza Chasan, Aliza Chasan Digital Content Producer Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for "60 Minutes" and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics. Read Full Bio Aliza Chasan, Maria Gavrilovic April 26, 2026 / 7:00 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google 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 gr...