Dick Cheney is dead. George W. Bush's influential Republican vice president was 84 years old

Dick Cheney, America's most powerful modern vice president and the chief architect of the “war on terror,” has died at the age of 84, his family announced in a statement, CNN reports.

Dick Cheney was the 46th Vice President of the United States, serving on the presidential staff of former Republican US President George W. Bush for two terms from 2001 to 2009.

He called Trump a “coward.”

Cheney has been an influential and controversial figure in Washington politics for decades. In recent years, however, Cheney, while remaining a hardline conservative, has been largely marginalized by his own party because of his harsh criticism of President Donald Trump, whom he has called a “coward” and the greatest threat to the republic in history.

In an ironic note at the end of a remarkable political career, Cheney cast his last vote in the 2024 presidential election in favor of a liberal Democrat – his “vice president club” colleague Kamala Harris, reflecting how far the populist Republican Party has drifted from its traditional conservatism.

Cheney was plagued by cardiovascular disease for most of his adult life. He had several heart attacks, but led an active and fulfilled life, living many years out of the public eye.

In 2012, he underwent a heart transplant, which he would later describe in a 2014 interview as “the gift of life itself.”