970x125
The death of former Vice President Dick Cheney cast a spotlight on his complicated legacy and the ways in which he and his family have been ostracized from the Trump-led GOP.
Cheney was one of the most powerful figures in politics during his time in Washington, having served as a congressman, White House chief of staff, Defense secretary and vice president. But rather than spending his final years as an elder statesman of the GOP, the Cheney name became toxic in a party that is now dominated by President Trump.
During his 2016 campaign, Trump rejected the traditional GOP foreign policy that Cheney had helped establish during his decades in power. The Trump-Cheney relationship soured for good after the 2020 election, when both the former vice president and then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) decried Trump as a threat to democracy over his attempts to overturn his electoral defeat.
In one of his final public acts, Cheney cast his ballot for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.
“It wasn’t just personal, it was a clash of world views,” said Matt Dallek, a professor of political management at George Washington University. “Cheney had the opposite view of Trump when it comes to foreign policy.”
Dallek said the split between the more Hawkish wing of the Republican Party represented by Cheney and the anti-interventionist wing led by Trump endures even in Trump’s second term.
“Then of course there were the attacks on Liz Cheney, the personal attacks, the destruction of Liz Cheney’s political career by Trump and MAGA, and Jan. 6,” Dallek said. “We shouldn’t underestimate how repulsed the Cheney family was by Trump’s actions leading up to and during Jan. 6.”
The White House on Tuesday lowered flags to half-staff around the building but otherwise offered no proclamation marking Cheney’s death. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was “aware” of Cheney’s death, but the president did not weigh in during a day when he had no public events.
Cheney was an influential and later controversial figure in Washington politics across multiple decades. He served as Defense secretary during the George H.W. Bush administration amid the launch of the war in the Persian Gulf.
And he was the infamous architect of the U.S. entering the Iraq War under former President George W. Bush, claiming Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Saddam Hussein’s possession. That assessment eventually was proven to be not true.
The former vice president also argued in favor of broad executive authority, insisting it was necessary to keep the nation safe. That broad view of executive power has echoed through Trump’s second term, as he carries out military strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean.
Cheney was deeply unpopular upon his exit from office, and it helped lay the foundation for how Trump appealed to voters during the 2016 campaign. A Pew Research Center poll found Cheney left office with a 31 percent approval rating.
Trump in many ways capitalized during his 2016 campaign on the discontent with the foreign policy establishment that Cheney represented. Trump pledged during his first presidential campaign to end so-called “forever wars” and scale back U.S. involvement abroad, though it was the Biden administration that officially ended the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Cheney endorsed Trump in 2016, and Liz Cheney was a Trump ally for much of his first term. But Trump’s personal animus toward the two escalated beginning in 2021.
Liz Cheney was one of a handful of Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. She later served on the special House panel that investigated the attack, drawing more ire from Trump and his allies.
Dick Cheney appeared in a 2022 campaign ad for his daughter in which he slammed Trump as a “coward” for pushing false claims about the 2020 election.
In 2024, Cheney endorsed Harris and warned Trump was an existential threat to the country.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a statement at the time. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution.”
Harris on Tuesday remembered Cheney as “a figure who, with a strong sense of dedication, gave so much of his life to the country he loved.”
Republicans, including some staunch Trump allies, also paid their respects to Cheney and praised his lengthy record of public service.
“Even when we have political differences as somebody later in life, you have to honor the sacrifices and the service they gave to their country,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said at a Tuesday press conference.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) described Cheney as “one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.”
“On foreign policy, he was unashamedly aggressive against the forces who meant harm to the United States. He had a unique ability to handle criticism from all corners of the political spectrum,” Graham said in a statement. “This is best explained by his tremendous sense of confidence in who he was and what he believed. When that self-confidence clashed with members of both parties, he was unshaken.”
