Former President George W. Bush delivered the eulogy for former Vice President Dick Cheney at the Washington National Cathedral during a Thursday funeral service to which President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were reportedly not invited.
Axios was the first to report the stark snub indicative of the acrimonious relationship between the Cheneys and Trump, whose election has widely been seen as a repudiation by the GOP base against the neoconservative interventionist foreign policy that prevailed during the Bush administration.
Former President Joe Biden, who once called Cheney “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history,” joined the other four living former vice presidents — Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, Al Gore and Dan Quayle — to honor Cheney, who died Nov. 3 at age 84 from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and their wives, were also noticeably absent from the funeral, though former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and justices of the U.S. Supreme Court attended. Many on social media spotted that Dr. Anthony Fauci was seen sitting next to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
During his eulogy, Bush emphasized his view of his two-term vice president as a steadfast friend, devoted family man and patriot whose public service across 40 years was “consistent, faithful and noble.”
“This was a vice president totally devoted to protecting the United States and its interests. There was never any agenda or angle beyond that,” Bush said.
Bush also shared that Cheney was reluctant to be his running mate in 2000, and that he offered to step aside when he ran again in 2004, though Bush noted that “after four years of seeing how he treated people, how he carried responsibility, how he handled pressure and took the hits, I arrived back at the conclusion that they do not come any better than Dick Cheney.”
“On that score, history should record that I chose my vice president not once, but twice,” he said.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who was resoundingly defeated in her home state’s GOP primary in 2022, also eulogized her father, stressing his belief that loyalty to country must transcend loyalty to a political party.
“Dick Cheney became a Republican, but he knew that bonds of party must always yield to the single bond we share as Americans,” she said. “For him, a choice between defense of the Constitution and defense of your political party was no choice at all.”
Cheney’s cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner; former NBC News correspondent Pete Williams, who served as Cheney’s press secretary when he was defense secretary under former President George H.W. Bush; and Cheney’s grandchildren also offered emotional tributes.
Though flags were lowered to half-staff following Cheney’s death earlier this month, the response from the White House was muted, with Trump saying nothing about it publicly and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledging simply that the president was “aware” of his passing.
The relationship between Trump and the Cheney family has soured in recent years, with both Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, denouncing Trump as a major threat to the republic in the wake of the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Liz Cheney served as the Republican Vice Chair of the January 6th House Select Committee, and Dick Cheney endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Two years earlier, he featured in a 60-second ad calling Trump a “coward” who lied to his supporters by questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election.
