![]() ![]() And that’s what we saw happen,” Raskin notes. ![]() “The extremist right-wing faction of the Republican Party called the Freedom Caucus is basically able to hold their whole Republican majority hostage until they get everything they want. “It’s tough for me as a politician, most of us are compulsive extroverts.”įor an avid student of US history like Raskin, the rounds of failure were historic for the wrong reason: never in a century had a party been unable to elect its own leader right off the bat. “I was not able to hang out, but I spent a lot more time tweeting,” he recalls. He spent those days in a “little conference room” adjacent to the chamber. Raskin – who taught constitutional law before entering politics – didn’t miss a single one of those votes. The election of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, resulted in an embarrassing spectacle, with the process being hijacked by 21 far-right lawmakers who forced McCarthy to go through 15 rounds of voting before allowing him to be sworn in. He does not plan, however, to let the disease keep him from his legislative work and his “struggle to defend democracy.” He demonstrated this during the first week of the new session of Congress, in which – for the first time in four years – the House of Representatives is controlled by the Republicans, who have a tiny majority. In the image, Donald Trump speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, on January 6, 2021. ![]() “I’m immunocompromised.” Presentation of the conclusions of the Special Commission, on December 19. He apologized that the interview was over Zoom the doctors, he explained, have advised him to avoid contact with people as much as possible. He wasn’t wearing his usual dark suit and tie, but rather, dressed in comfortable clothes, with a backwards baseball cap. Raskin, 60, spoke to EL PAÍS last Saturday, from his home in Takoma Park – a suburb of Washington, DC – in Montgomery County, Maryland. “History sometimes decides for you.” The past few years of his life are certainly proof of this. Raskin’s prominent role as a member of the committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol made him a key witness to the recent history of the United States. ![]() The book, published by HarperCollins in January of 2022, is a mixture of a political treatise and personal memories from the months in which a man lost a son, was about to lose a democracy and became a figure of international prominence by leading – at the request of then-speaker Nancy Pelosi – the second, unsuccessful impeachment against Trump. On that day, Raskin, along with hundreds of other congresspeople, had to flee through the halls of the legislative branch to save themselves from a violent mob.īoth of these “insurmountable traumas” – mourning and insurrection – are the backbone of Raskin’s memoir, Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy. And, on January 6, two years had also passed since rioters stormed the Capitol building. On December 31, 2022, it was two years since the death of his son, Tommy Raskin, who committed suicide at the age of 25 while suffering from depression aggravated by the Covid pandemic. In addition to this difficult medical situation, the congressman has recently commemorated two terrible anniversaries. The doctors are very optimistic about it. Since then, Raskin has undergone the first of six chemotherapy sessions. This cancer, which is considered to be “serious but curable” by oncologists, became national news, forcing his meeting with EL PAÍS to be delayed. However, that same day, it was announced that Raskin – one of Washington’s most charismatic politicians – is suffering from diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. On December 19, the panel agreed to refer former president Donald Trump and others to the Justice Department for potential criminal charges, including the charge of inciting an insurrection. This interview was originally meant to take place on December 28, 2022, one week after Congressman Jamie Raskin – a Democrat from Maryland – read out a statement on behalf of all nine members of the bipartisan congressional committee that investigated the assault on the Capitol, which took place just over two years ago, on January 6, 2021. ![]()
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