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Former Vice President Dick Cheney Dies at 84; Polls Open in First Major Test of Trump's Second Term. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 04, 2025 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. The breaking news this morning, former Vice President Dick Cheney has died at the age of 84 for a stretch of about 30 years. It's hard to list many people who had a greater effect on the course of American history. Cheney's family says he died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.

The Cheney family released a statement saying, in part, 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. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country, and we're blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble, giant of a man.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer looks back at Dick Cheney's life and legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Gradually, I realized that the person who was best qualified to be my vice presidential nominee was working by my side.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): For most of his adult life, Richard Bruce Cheney was the ultimate Washington insider.

DICK CHENEY, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: That I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I'm about to enter, the duties of the office on which I'm about to enter.

BLITZER: Named as George Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney quickly forged a public identity as a no nonsense disciplined gatekeeper, a powerful politician to whom and through whom access and influence flowed.

But his appearance at the very highest levels of government was by no means his first time in the national spotlight. He began his public service career in the Nixon administration, working in several White House jobs dealing with the economy.

After President Nixon resigned because of Watergate, Cheney worked for the new president, Gerald Ford, eventually becoming his chief of staff. When that 29-month presidency ended, Cheney returned to the land he loved, to his home in Wyoming. But it was a very short stay. Elected as a state's only member of the House of Representatives, Cheney returned to the Capitol and served for a decade in Congress. He was in the Republican leadership hierarchy when the first President Bush chose him to be his secretary of defense.

In charge of the Pentagon, Cheney was almost instantly engaged in two of the American military's largest and most complicated operations since the end of the Vietnam War. First, he led the removal of Panama's Manuel Noriega from power, and then Operation Desert Storm, the American and allied response after the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have, in effect, destroyed most of the Iraqi army. We have taken out most of the infrastructure. The lights are out in Baghdad.

BLITZER: His experience and steadfastness were of critical importance, and those traits were not unnoticed. Out of government for the first time in years during the Clinton administration, Cheney became head of the giant oil services company, Halliburton. It was a job that kept him steeped in defense and foreign policy, and a role that later became a lightning rod for his critics.

By the time his old boss' son secured the Republican presidential nomination, Cheney's health was a major concern, three mild heart attacks and a quadruple bypass before he was 50. Doctors gave him a green light. But shortly after the 2000 election, he suffered another mild heart attack.

CHENEY: I've got a doctor that follows me around 24 hours a day. That comes with a job as a vice president.

BLITZER: Cheney quickly became a target for Bush administration critics, especially for convening oil and energy industry representatives to a White House meeting and then declining to make public any contents of the sessions. And later, after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, he became at times invisible to the public. Only a few people knew where he was for much of the time.

But behind the scenes, Cheney was a driving force behind some of the biggest controversies of the Bush administration, including the second war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In 2007, I asked him about mistakes made and concerns among some Republicans that the war had damaged the Bush administration's credibility.

CHENEY: Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash.

BLITZER: Cheney's health problems returned after he left office for a time drastically altering his appearance. Another heart attack in 2010 prompted doctors to implant a battery-operated device to help his heart pump blood. His health seemed to stabilize after a 2012 heart transplant at the age of 71.

Cheney largely disappeared from public life until emerging at the site of the January 6th insurrection one year after it happened. [07:05:06]

During a moment of silence on the House floor, Cheney accompanied his daughter, Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, also a member of the select committee that investigated the attack. He was warmly greeted by the House speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

CHENEY: In our Nation's 246 year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.

BLITZER: Later that year, Cheney tried to help his daughter's struggling primary campaign after she came under fire from former President Trump and has devoted supporters over her work on the January 6th committee.

CHENEY: He is a coward. A real man wouldn't lie to his supporters.

BLITZER: When Trump ran for president again in 2024 against Vice President Kamala Harris, Cheney joined his daughter in endorsing the Democratic nominee.

FMR. REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris.

BLITZER: American politicians have no shortage of critics, and Dick Cheney was no exception, but there were just as many, perhaps more who saw him as a resolute, disciplined loyalist who wound up becoming one of the most influential and powerful vice presidents in American history.

CHENEY: The most important thing that any vice president needs to know is to understand what it is the president he works for, wants him to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Let's bring in now CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel. You have covered and known this family for decades. What are you hearing this morning from them?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So, first of all, I just -- I think it's important to know his family was with him. He was at home. His wife, Lynn, they were married for more than 60 years, was there, as were his daughters, Liz Cheney and Mary Cheney.

And, you know, it's -- he was 84 years old and I think one thing to keep in mind is, you know, we had Dr. Reiner on earlier who was his cardiologist all of these years. Dick Cheney had five heart attacks and a heart transplant along his life. You know, obviously the family is heartbroken today, but they really did have many more years with him than they, you know, expected because of the care he got and advances in cardiology.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And, I mean, such a long life in years and in also what he experienced, what he was part of and what he brought about in the world of politics. I mean, it is hard when you're talking about a vice president to think of someone who's had more impact in the office of vice president than Dick Cheney, Jamie.

GANGEL: There's no question. He always held up as one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful vice president. It was not a ceremonial job. It was -- he really did the job of government. You know, when former President George W. Bush was looking for a vice president, the truth of the matter is he asked Dick Cheney first. And Cheney said no. And then he became the head of the search committee. And as the two of the men went through other candidates, they came back to Dick Cheney.

And so people often joke that, you know, Dick Cheney did the search for the job and then he took the job. The reality is he was also the person that former President Bush wanted for the job on day one.

He also, as we know, became very controversial over the years. He was a lightning rod for critics because of his positions about enhanced interrogation with U.S. detainees after 9/11, and because of his lobbying and campaigning for the Iraq war.

But I think one of the things that he told me over the years that's important to remember was, as you recall, a 9/11 President Bush, former President Bush was traveling. Dick Cheney was at the White House. And he was the one who had to make many of these difficult calls when we really didn't know what was going on on 9/11 and what was next. And he told me that -- you know, I asked him over the years did he have any regrets about enhanced interrogation or any of these very harsh policies that he became criticized for.

[07:10:05]

And he always said that he had no regrets. He never backed down. But the reason was because he said he really was a changed man after 9/11, that he felt his number one priority was to keep the country safe.

BERMAN: It's interesting when you talk about Iraq, Jamie. I think that as time passes, people forget how central the Iraq war was to the course of American history, how it defined maybe multiple generations of politics, I think both the Obama era and also the Trump era, and former Vice President Dick Cheney, I mean, Dick Cheney, absolutely a, if not the central player along with President Bush in that decision to invade Iraq and in the decision for how to administer it.

So, Dick Cheney really, again, helped shape in some people say for worse or better where America is today.

GANGEL: You know, John, no question that is true. I want to say one thing about the relationship between President Bush and Vice President Cheney. You know, former President Bush made their relationship a partnership. And no question, Vice President Dick Cheney was very powerful, but President Bush always said, I was the decider. He was the adviser-in-chief. And former Vice President Dick Cheney said that as, as well.

You know, in addition to the Iraq war, Vice President Cheney was very influential in the importance of executive power and pushing executive power. And one of the reasons I mentioned that today was he really believed in that. But there are a whole generation of people now who really don't remember him as vice president. They remember him as Liz Cheney's father. And I think one of the fascinating things that we've seen in the last decade is his evolution as Liz Cheney took on Donald Trump after January 6th, so did her father. There was no daylight between them.

And I've spoken to Liz Cheney many times about the role that he played with her in, you know, standing up to Donald Trump, in becoming vice chairman of the January 6th select committee. And he really was critical. You know, we're just showing some pictures now. So, I just -- that I believe is the first anniversary of the attack on the Capitol. So, that's one year after January 6th. And the two of them came to the Capitol for -- to commemorate the one year anniversary.

And what was notable is when they got to the House floor and sat down, former Vice President Dick Cheney looked around and they were the only Republicans who were there. And he told Liz how striking it was. He realized that the Republican Party was under the control of President Trump. But it was just such a stark reminder to be sitting there at the time.

The other notable thing that happened that day which shows how politics changed over the years. The day that they were sitting there, Nancy Pelosi was speaker. She was sitting, you know, in the chair and she came down and greeted both Liz Cheney and former Vice President Dick Cheney so warmly. And then there was a line of Democrats there to thank them for standing up to former President Trump.

So, it's, you know, the same man who was in favor of executive power also was very concerned, he told me. And this was even before January 6th, that when you have someone like Donald Trump in power, that it can be very dangerous. I don't know if we have the ad that he made for Liz Cheney, the video of it. So, maybe we could just show that because he says exactly what he thinks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.

[07:15:05]

He was a coward. A real man wouldn't lie to his supporters.

He lost his election and he lost big. I know it. He knows it. And deep down, I think most Republicans know it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So, go ahead, Jamie.

GANGEL: Good. I just wanted to say, you know, I've spoken to Liz Cheney a couple of times in the last few weeks, and one of the things she really wants people to remember is that her being able to stand up to Donald Trump, her voting for the impeachment, her work on the January 6th committee, she hopes people realize that part of her father's legacy is that was the way he raised her, to have the courage of her convictions.

SIDNER: Yes, and both of them sort of being ostracized by their own party because of that.

I do want to bring in Dr. Reiner who treated Dick Cheney from very early on. We were just looking at some pictures where he's in the video from the very beginning as Dick Cheney becomes vice president. Dr. Reiner, can you give us some sense of just this morning of your thoughts on the passing of the vice president?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Sara. Well, first of all, this morning, I'm thinking about the vice president and I'm thinking about the Cheney family and his wife, Lynn, of many years, of Liz and Mary and the many grandchildren.

I met the vice president when I was a very, very young doctor. In fact, I was still in training when I first met him. He had been under the care of my mentor, Dr. Allan Ross. And when Dr. Ross retired, I basically inherited Dick Cheney. He was working for Halliburton then and I was just a couple years out of training and I had really no idea what the road ahead would hold.

And he became my most complicated patient, and in many ways, my life as a doctor and my life in general became sort of interwoven into this singular patient. It's both a blessing and a curse to take care of people over many years. The blessing is that you get to know them incredibly well, and I was honored to get to know Vice President Cheney and his whole family, you know, very, very well.

The bit of a curse is that the so-called firewall that docs are supposed to have between themselves and their patients becomes very, very thin the more you get to know somebody. And he became very important to me.

SIDNER: I just wanted to let people -- we're looking at pictures of you and Vice President Cheney throughout the years. And you said he was your most complicated patient. He had his first heart attack at 37. So, as you said, this was really, really because of your care that he was able to survive through his vice presidency, according to some of the family members.

REINER: Well, there were, you know, dozens of people over the years who have contributed to the care of this patient. But he became emblematic of what medicine has been able to do for people with heart disease over the last half century, and, magically, almost magically every time he hit a roadblock, the medicine had just developed a solution for it.

You know, his first heart attack at 37 in 19 78, there was nothing to do for a heart attack. If you had a heart attack in 1978, basically, what we did, but this is before my time as a physician, what medicine had to offer you was good wishes. You know, we're going to support you. We hope you don't die now. And then medicine took off. And every time he had a red light basically blinked in front of him, medicine had just developed a solution. He had bypass surgery. He had bypass surgery. He had coronary stent angioplasty and coronary stents placed. He had a defibrillator inserted. He had a ventricular assist device inserted and then ultimately transplant and the medical therapy for heart disease. The medical therapy advanced in lockstep with his illness in terms of being able to tamp down the severity of his atherosclerosis.

[07:25:06]

So, he was a remarkable patient, and spending so much time with him, there was a trust that developed between the two of us. He was also the easiest patient.

BOLDUAN: Well, I was -- Dr. Reiner, I was going to actually ask you, I mean, there's so much said about Dick Cheney over the years, how he was seen, how he was an operator. Was he the puppet master behind the scenes of the Bush administration? How was he as a patient?

REINER: He was amazing. He asked great questions and he was incredibly compliant. I've never had a patient as compliant as Dick Cheney. At one point at, you know, we wrote a book together about his health. He was so interested in telling the public about his experience with heart disease because he thought he could help. It was important to him to educate people.

I went to an event with him while he still had that ventricular assist device after that sort of near fatal summer, where his, really, heart function collapsed and he managed to survive with this mechanical pump that was run by batteries. And he was invited to an event in Cleveland, the Cleveland Clinic, and he invited me to come along.

And as we were leaving the event, a man about his age basically chased us down and the man told him, you know, sir, I have a ventricular assist device also. And they both opened their jackets to show each other how they wear the pump. And the vice president had a vest made where the batteries could fit into it. And, you know, this other basically compadre in his battle with heart disease became sort -- he was just so warm and open with him.

And on a personal level, the vice president was very gracious and very grateful. After his first -- after the heart attack at the beginning of the Bush-Cheney administration, he and Mrs. Cheney donated $3 million to George Washington University to start a heart institute. It was largely ignored at the time by media. But he donated $3 million, a sitting vice president of the United States. He was very, very grateful. And over the years, I got to know him not just as the vice president and not just as the patient, but as a grandfather, you know, to Liz and Mary's kids.

So, you know, I said before that it's sort of a blessing and a curse to get to know people throughout this arc of their illness, but it's hard to let go. It's really hard to let go. And I feel that too.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Reiner, you have been -- we've had you on so many times and hearing these stories will absolutely never get old. And we are so thankful for you today, and so sorry for your loss. And it's really -- thank you for spending some time with us. We really appreciate it. Jamie Gangel, as always, thank you so much, Jamie, also for bringing this to us today.

We are going to have much more on this breaking news ahead throughout the morning, the legacy, the reaction coming in from around the world.

Plus, guys, it is Election Day in America, my friends. We are tracking all of the key races, as candidates, they're heading out this morning to cast their own ballots.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: It is Election Day in America, and the polls are open in several high stakes races here in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia. And as we have heard, this is going to be a sort of voter mood ring that will tell us what direction voters think the country is headed. And while President Trump is not on the ballot, his presence honestly felt everywhere with Democrats banking on his sagging approval rating, and with Trump himself throwing himself into the races at the last- minute.

So, in the hopes of defeating Democratic Nominee Zohran Mamdani here in New York City, the president formally endorsed Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent rather than the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa. And if Mamdani wins, the president has threatened to cut federal funds to the city.

CNN's Jason Carroll live outside a polling -- inside a polling location here in New York City. I got bad information. I was told you're outside. I'd like to issue a correction. You are inside a polling location, Jason Carroll.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is correct. We're doing both, John. We're doing outside. We're doing inside. We're doing all of it just so we're giving you the best view possible. Take a look behind me. We're in the upper west side of Manhattan. Polls have now been open for a little bit more than an hour now. This has been one of the busiest polling sites we've seen in the city. Talk about record numbers, 16,000 -- more than 16,500 people voted here early, when you talk about early voting here in the city of New York, more than four times as many.