Former Vice President Dick Cheney Dead at 84
Dick Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States and a defining figure in Republican national security politics, died on Monday night. He was 84.
Cheney died “due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” according to a statement released by his family early Tuesday. He leaves behind his wife Lynne, two daughters, and six grandchildren.
The statement, first published by Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman, reads in full:
Richard B. Cheney, the 46th Vice President of the United States, died last night, November 3, 2025. He was 84 years old. 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.
For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States.
Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.
Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Jan. 30, 1941, and raised in Casper, Wyoming. He secured five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, mostly through education and marriage, once explaining he had “other priorities” in the 1960s. After attending Yale University briefly and dropping out he became a student at the University of Wyoming where he completed his bachelor’s degree and masters.
He first entered federal service under former President Richard Nixon in 1969, working in the Office of Economic Opportunity and the White House. He rose up the ranks quickly and by 34, was White House chief of staff under former President Gerald Ford.
He returned to Wyoming and won a seat to Congress in 1978. Later, as Secretary of Defense under former President George H.W. Bush, he directed the U.S. invasion of Panama and the Gulf War. Former President George W. Bush chose him as running mate in 2000 when he became president.
Cheney went on to become the architect of the U.S.’s defense posture from the Cold War through the Gulf War, then again after 9/11, admired by some for his work and reviled by others, particularly for his role in post-9/11 domestic surveillance, the “war on terror” and the Iraq War.
His power during that time would define his public memory. The post-9/11 wars scarred the U.S. and the world. By the end of the Iraq occupation, 4,431 US troops had been killed and nearly 32,000 wounded; in Afghanistan, 2,352 died and more than 20,000 were wounded. The civilian toll across the region ran into the hundreds of thousands.
He continued to defend the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” well into retirement, despite accusations from humanitarian organizations and critics that they constituted torture. His time as vice president was also marred by the abuses against detainees recorded at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
He most recently re-entered the partisan fray when he publicly joined with his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, to endorse Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and rejected Trump’s candidacy as a “threat” to the country.
