Former Vice-President Dick Cheney died on Monday, November 3, 2025, due to complications of pneumonia, as well as cardiac and vascular disease. He was 84 years old.

Cheney’s family announced his passing, stating that his wife, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him.

“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,” the statement reads. “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 the 46th vice president who served two terms in 2001 to 2009 with republican President George W. Bush. He was considered the most powerful American vice president in modern history and was a central figure behind the war on terror.

He was born Richard Bruce Cheney on January 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Cheney and wife started dating while in high school, and he attended Yale University on scholarship, but did not graduate. Following a period of working on power lines, he returned to school, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science at the University of Wyoming.

Cheney was an aide to Richard Nixon, he was a Wyoming representative, White House chief of staff, and defense secretary. He had turned to a career in the corporate world when Bush asked him to help research potential vice presidential nominees. In the end, Cheney was the one who got the position.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Cheney was in the White House while the president was in Sarasota, Florida at an elementary school reading event. From a bunker below the White House, he gave orders to shoot down any more hijacked planes if they headed toward the White House or US Capital building.

Cheney had stated that after the second plane hit the World Trade Center, he changed and became determined to avenge the attack orchestrated by al Qaeda. He said that he felt the responsibility to make sure that type of assault never happened again.

He pushed for the US war in Afghanistan to stop the Taliban and find al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden. Cheney also pushed to expand the war to Iraq to find Saddam Hussein because he believed that the country had links to al Qaeda and plans to provide them with deadly weapons for future attacks on the US.

Cheney suffered from cardiovascular disease for much of his life, he had multiple heart attacks, and a heart transplant in 2012. In his later years, Cheney was vocal about his disapproval of President Trump and publicly stated that he was voting for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. He authored and co-authored multiple books on politics, most recently in 2015’s Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, co-written by his daughter, Liz. He and Liz also wrote his memoir, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, released in 2011.