Former Vice President Dick Cheney died Monday, according to a statement released by his family.
“Richard B. Cheney, the 46th Vice President of the United States, died last night, November 3, 2025. He was 84 years old,” Cheney’s family said in a statement.
“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed. The former Vice President died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.”
Cheney served as vice president during former President George W. Bush’s administration from 2001-09. He is considered one of the most influential vice presidents in modern U.S. history, having helped lead the country’s “war on terror” following the 9/11 attacks. He and other Bush administration officials faced fierce criticism following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 over false claims the country possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Cheney also served as Defense secretary in former President George H.W. Bush’s administration from 1989-93.
In 1978, Cheney was elected to represent Wyoming in the House of Representatives, going on to serve as House Republican Conference chair and House minority whip. Prior to his tenure in the House, Cheney was former President Ford’s chief of staff.
Despite his status as a hawkish conservative, Cheney was a vocal critic of President Trump and backed former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Democratic presidential bid last year.
“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution,” Cheney said at the time. “That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Cheney’s daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), was also an outspoken Trump critic, breaking with the president following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” the former vice president said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”
Cheney remade the vice presidency, transforming the role from a ceremonial post to one with considerable influence over policy on terrorism, executive authority, Iraq and other key issues for conservatives.
He made numerous allegations about the Iraq War that did not pan out as expected: He claimed there were ties between the 9/11 attacks and prewar Iraq that did not exist, and he claimed U.S. troops would be treated as liberators in Iraq, but they were not.
He never lost his conviction about the war, even as many in the country turned against the anti-terror campaign and the leaders in charge of it.
Cheney retired to Jackson Hole, Wyo., near where Liz Cheney would buy a home. She was elected to the House a few years later, in 2016.
The Associated Press contributed.
Updated at 8:09 a.m. EST
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