Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin said Wednesday that he has a type of lymphoma that’s a “serious but curable form of cancer” and he is beginning several months of treatment.
Raskin, who will be the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Reform Committee in the next Congress, said he expects to be able to work through his outpatient treatment at a Washington-area hospital.
In a statement Wednesday, Raskin said he has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and the “prognosis for most people in my situation is excellent after four months of treatment.” He said he has been advised his chemotherapy treatment will cause hair loss and weight gain.
“I am still holding out hope for the kind that causes hair gain and weight loss,” he joked.
Raskin has played a leading role in recent years as House Democrats twice impeached then-President Donald Trump and investigated Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. He was the lead impeachment manager when the House impeached Trump one week after the attack, and he currently sits on the House committee investigating the siege. That panel issued its final report last week and is set to dissolve when the new Republican-led House is sworn in on Jan. 3.
This is the second time the Maryland Democrat has been diagnosed with cancer, as he previously battled colorectal cancer in 2010. The news comes almost exactly two years after his 25-year-old son, Tommy, committed suicide on Dec. 31, 2020.
Tommy’s death came just a week before the insurrection, and Raskin had brought his daughter and son-in-law to the Capitol that day. Through tears, Raskin spoke about their ordeal as he argued for Trump’s conviction in the Senate impeachment trial. The two hid under a desk as the violence unfolded, and his daughter later told him she didn’t want to return to the Capitol.
“Of all the terrible, brutal things I saw and I heard on that day and since then, that one hit me the hardest,” Raskin told the Senate jurors, who later acquitted Trump for a second time.
Raskin wrote a book, “Unthinkable,” about working through his trauma from both events.
Of his most recent trial, Raskin says, “I plan to get through this and, in the meantime, to keep making progress every day in Congress for American democracy.”
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
7 Responses
This is the clown who was in the news just yesterday for attacking the electoral college as “a danger, not just to democracy, but to the American people”. No sympathy from me.
Pretty sure he’s a yid so he should have a Refuah Sheleima mentally, physically and spiritually.
Regardless of his political party, cancer ym’s is terrible no one should know of it in any way shape or form!!
Milhouse: Your usual vile and hateful rants about someone with you you politically disagree are expected. Just in case you have any doubts, the same sentiments regarding your untimely loss would likely to come your way at some time in the future.
Dorah,
What self-righteous hypocrisy! Vile and hateful rants about someone with whom you politically disagree are your hallmark. You even have the gall to publicly call frum Jews names just because of their views and comments.
Attaining forgiveness for such behavior is almost impossible. Just in case you have any doubts, the sickness and suffering that are sure to follow won’t shock anyone. Nary a tear will be shed when your abhorrent screed no longer defaces this site.
He is an open enemy of the basic institutions that make the USA the greatest country in the world. He is openly hostile to the constitution and wants to overturn it. Why should I have any sympathy for him?
Now his colleague Cardin has declared war on the freedom of speech. Another enemy of America. He should get cancer too.