Polarizing Tenure as Vice President

PBS Information Hour

11/4/25

7:43:07 p.m. (ET)

Amna Nawaz: Dick Cheney, some of the influential and polarizing vice presidents in American historical past, has died on the age of 84. He served alongside then-President George W. Bush for 2 phrases, which noticed the 9/11 assaults and the beginning of two main wars.

In a press release in the present day, President Bush wrote — quote — “Dick was a peaceful and regular presence within the White Home amid nice nationwide challenges.”

Cheney’s household mentioned he handed away yesterday attributable to problems from pneumonia, together with cardiac and vascular illness.

John Yang appears again at his life and legacy with this report.

John Yang: As President George W. Bush’s quantity two, Dick Cheney emerged as some of the highly effective and controversial vice presidents thus far. The eight years he was in workplace have been a number of the most consequential in American historical past, the 9/11 assaults, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the battle on terror.

Cheney was on the middle of all of it.

Dick Cheney, Former Vice President of america: I mainly was given just about free rein to become involved in no matter I wished to become involved in, take part within the conferences I wished to take part in.

John Yang: He was most concerned in nationwide safety, particularly the controversial Iraq Warfare. Cheney led the trouble to persuade the American public of a contentious argument.

Dick Cheney: Merely acknowledged, there isn’t any doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no such thing as a doubt that he’s amassing them to make use of towards our mates, towards our allies, and towards us.

John Yang: When no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered, Cheney was unapologetic.

Wolf Blitzer, CNN Anchor: So no regrets about Iraq?

Dick Cheney: I believe we made the — precisely the suitable choices.

John Yang: Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Nebraska and grew up in Wyoming. He went to Yale College on a full scholarship, however flunked out twice. He finally received his bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in Wyoming. He was pursuing his Ph.D. with a watch on a tutorial profession, when a one-year fellowship on Capitol Hill modified the path of his life.

In time, he turned President Gerald Ford’s White Home chief of employees, at 34, the youngest ever. He was so low-key his Secret Service code title was Backseat. Following Ford’s loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976, Cheney returned to Wyoming to run for the state’s lone U.S. Home seat.

Throughout that marketing campaign, Cheney had his first coronary heart assault when he was simply 37. For the following three a long time, he struggled with coronary artery illness, 4 extra coronary heart assaults and quadruple bypass surgical procedure earlier than a 2012 coronary heart transplant.

Again then, his spouse, Lynne, stood in till he may resume campaigning. He received with 59 p.c of the vote, the smallest margin of his seven election wins. His amiable, reasonable character cloaked the positions of a staunch conservative, for reducing taxes and extra protection spending, and towards abortion and gun legal guidelines.

He rose within the management and in 1988 was elected whip, the quantity two Home Republican. He wasn’t within the job lengthy. After the Senate rejected John Tower to be President George H.W. Bush’s protection secretary, the brand new president turned to Cheney.

George H.W. Bush, Former President of america: He is a considerate man, a quiet man, a powerful man, approaches public coverage with vigor and willpower and diligence.

John Yang: Regardless of a scarcity of navy expertise — he received 5 Vietnam Warfare draft deferments — he sailed by means of the Senate 92-0.

On the Pentagon, Cheney rapidly asserted himself, bypassing greater than a dozen extra senior generals to pick out Colin Powell to be Joint Chiefs chairman, the primary Black individual and the youngest in that job. Collectively, they oversaw the U.S. invasion of Panama, the pivot from Chilly Warfare footing and the primary Iraq Warfare after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

As U.S. forces gathered in Saudi Arabia in August 1990, Cheney defined the U.S. pursuits at stake on the “Information Hour.”

Dick Cheney: We’re there as a result of if Saddam Hussein, who’s, I’d argue, a much more frightful creature than most rulers you will see anyplace on the earth in the present day, have been to take management of the world’s provide of power along with his monumental navy functionality, with the prospect he would purchase nuclear weapons, that he would have a strangle to carry on the economic system of america and the remainder of the world.

And we can’t afford that. That is why we’re there.

John Yang: It took U.S. forces simply 100 hours to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. President Bush rejected calls to push on to Baghdad and topple Hussein.

Dick Cheney: We had an goal. We achieved our goal and we weren’t going any additional.

John Yang: After Bush was defeated for reelection by Invoice Clinton in 1992, Cheney briefly thought of operating for president.

Dick Cheney: The extra I thought of it, the extra I made a decision this isn’t one thing for me.

John Yang: As an alternative, he turned the top of Halliburton, one of many world’s greatest oil providers companies. His time there drew scrutiny in the course of the 2003 Iraq Warfare, when Halliburton received multibillion-dollar Pentagon contracts. Questions have been raised, however no proof of wrongdoing was ever uncovered.

Cheney’s return to public service was sudden. In July 2000, he arrived at George W. Bush’s Texas ranch with two binders of analysis into potential operating mates that Bush had requested him to assemble. It turns on the market was no want. Bush requested Cheney to affix the ticket.

George W. Bush, Former President of america: Progressively, I noticed that the one who was finest certified to be my vice presidential nominee was working by my aspect.

John Yang: Years later, Cheney acknowledged that he was an unconventional alternative, a 60-year-old with coronary heart illness.

Dick Cheney: If well being was the one standards, go get a 30-year-old. That is not what he was after. What he was after was someone with expertise.

John Yang: Particularly the international coverage expertise and the years working the levers of energy in Washington, each issues Bush lacked.

In the course of the drawn-out Florida recount that determined the election, Cheney assembled a group that will change into the following Bush administration. He additionally suffered his fourth coronary heart assault. Simply eight months into the brand new presidency, all the pieces modified with the September 11 assaults.

Dick Cheney: Impulsively, the door to my workplace burst open. And one in every of my brokers, a Secret Service agent named Jimmy Scott, got here bursting in, grabbed the again of my belt and actually lifted me out of the chair and propelled me out of the room.

John Yang: President Bush was within the air after visiting an elementary faculty in Florida and communications with Air Drive One have been spotty. Within the underground White Home emergency operations middle, it was Cheney others turned to for choices. At one level, an airliner gave the impression to be heading towards the White Home. An Air Drive official requested if it needs to be shot down.

Dick Cheney: And I mentioned sure. I gave that order. I could not take a ballot. I did not have time to name the president. If it was going to occur, it was going to occur very quick. So I by no means hesitated.

John Yang: Within the following days, he performed a central function in shaping the U.S. response. The weekend after the assaults, he spoke with Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Dick Cheney: We additionally should work these — form of the darkish aspect, if you’ll. We will spend time within the shadows and within the intelligence world. Plenty of what must be carried out right here should be carried out quietly with none dialogue.

John Yang: Intelligence recognized Osama bin Laden as being behind the assaults. A month after 9/11, U.S. forces went to battle in Afghanistan to root him out.

Dick Cheney: We’ll maintain those that harbor terrorists, those that present sanctuary to terrorists chargeable for their acts.

John Yang: Troops defeated the Taliban, however bin Laden slipped throughout the border to Pakistan. Then, extra controversially, the administration turned its consideration to Iraq, and Cheney once more had a number one function in a navy operation towards Saddam Hussein.

On “Meet the Press,” he predicted one other fast triumph. Requested by moderator Tim Russert if he thought Individuals have been ready for a protracted battle with many U.S. casualties, Cheney mentioned: “I do not assume it is more likely to unfold that manner, as a result of I actually do imagine we might be greeted as liberators.”

Hussein was toppled in simply three weeks, however U.S. forces remained in Iraq for eight years. Greater than 3,400 troops have been killed in hostilities and practically 32,000 wounded. As suspected terrorists have been captured on the battlefield, Cheney endorsed so-called enhanced interrogation strategies, together with water-boarding.

Dick Cheney: Strategies we got here up with, as much as and together with water-boarding, and that was essentially the most important, however particularly had been deemed to not represent torture and subsequently to be inside the safeguards of our worldwide agreements. Not all people agreed with that, however we did it by the e-book.

John Yang: A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded the strategies didn’t yield any important intelligence.

Because the 2004 election approached, Cheney had change into a lightning rod for criticism. He supplied to step down from the ticket, a proposal Bush mentioned he thought of, however rejected. Within the second time period, Cheney mentioned his function was diminished.

Dick Cheney: Within the final time period, particularly given my basic view of the world, and I used to be extra hawkish than most, that the president did not settle for my recommendation as a lot as he had within the first time period.

John Yang: Bush and Cheney’s relationship, all the time extra skilled than private, was strained within the closing days of the administration over the president’s refusal to pardon longtime Cheney aide Scooter Libby. He’d been convicted of mendacity to a grand jury throughout an FBI investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s title.

Returning to non-public life, Cheney turned a fierce critic of President Barack Obama, and in the course of the subsequent administration, he backed his elder daughter, Consultant Liz Cheney, when she criticized President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Dick Cheney: There has by no means been a person who was a larger risk to our republic than Donald Trump.

John Yang: When Trump ran for president once more in 2024, Cheney, a lifelong Republican, forged his remaining vote for one more member of the vp’s membership, Democrat Kamala Harris. He mentioned residents have an obligation to place nation above partisanship.

As soon as some of the highly effective Republican voices, Cheney was ostracized inside the occasion and dismissed by Trump as an irrelevant RINO, a Republican in title solely. Whereas he was vp, Cheney’s well being had deteriorated. In 2010, he suffered sudden cardiac arrest, an episode his heart specialist mentioned probably would have killed him if not for an implanted defibrillator.

After a 20-month look forward to an acceptable donor, Cheney had a coronary heart transplant. It restored his well being and allowed him to spend time along with his grandchildren and return to 2 favourite pastimes, fly-fishing and searching. Earlier than the transplant, Cheney underwent a nine-hour surgical procedure.

Popping out of sedation, he recalled a dream.

Dick Cheney: I had very vivid recollections of being in Italy in a bit of village north of Rome, dwelling in a pleasant villa. And the household requested me afterwards: “Dad, have been we with you?”

And I mentioned: “No.”

That wasn’t the suitable reply. However I used to be at peace.

John Yang: At peace additionally describes Cheney’s emotions concerning the controversies that make up a lot of his legacy.

For the PBS “Information Hour,” I am John Yang.