Charles Krauthammer announced he only has a few weeks left to live. Here’s what you need to know about the Fox News commentator.
Award-winning journalist Charles Krauthammer announced in a brief note published to The Washington Post ‘s website on June 8 that doctors determined he only has a few weeks left to live. Here are five things you need to know about him:
1. He announced he had a few weeks left to live after battling cancer. In his letter to readers, Krauthammer revealed that he underwent surgery last August to remove a cancerous tumor in his abdomen. While the operation was thought to have been successful, he faced a series of complications in the months after. He continued to get better, but recent tests revealed that the cancer returned, and was now incredibly aggressive and spreading quickly. “My doctors tell me their best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live. This is the final verdict. My fight is over,” he wrote.
He went on to thank his collaborators, readers, doctors, and friends. “I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living,” he added. “I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.”
2. He regularly contributed to Fox News and The Washington Post. The journalist has been a longtime commentator for the conservative news outlet as well as a columnist at The Washington Post since 1984. After publishing his letter regarding his cancer, Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox News, issued a statement praising Krauthammer, according to CNN. “Charles has been a profound source of personal and intellectual inspiration for all of us at Fox News. His always principled stand on the most important issues of our time has been a guiding star in an often turbulent world, a world that has too many superficial thinkers vulnerable to the ebb and flow of fashion, and a world that, unfortunately, has only one Charles Krauthammer,” Murdoch said. “His words, his ideas, his dignity and his integrity will resonate within our society and within me for many, many years to come.”
3. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. He won the coveted award for commentary in 1987 for “his witty and insightful columns on national issues.” He was also nominated for the same award in 1986.
4. He is permanently paralyzed from the neck down. Krauthammer was injured in a diving board accident during his first year at Harvard Medical School. The injuries left him paralyzed below the neck and required him to be hospitalized for 14 months. He has used a wheelchair ever since the accident.
5. He has received a public apology from the White House. In 2012, Krauthammer wrote a column that stated that then-President Barack Obama “started his presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.” According to White House curator William Allman, the bust was on loan to George W. Bush and was meant to go back to the U. K. once Bush’s term ended. However, Obama’s communications director called Krauthammer’s claim “patently false” and “ridiculous” and claimed it was still in the White House. It was then revealed that the communications director was referring to a completely different bust of the former British prime minister that was given to Lyndon B. Johnson decades prior.
A few days later, the journalist demanded a retraction and apology from the White House. He initially received a private apology, but it was later made public in the White House blog per his request. Krauthammer later said that he was “the only entity on earth, other than rogue states, that has received an apology from the White House.”
