Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) called former Vice President Dick Cheney, who died on Monday, a “patriotic American who loved his country.”
“While we strongly disagreed on most policy issues, his patriotism was clear when he returned to the House Floor to commemorate the first anniversary of January 6th,” Pelosi said Tuesday on the social platform X. “We all saw then how proud Vice President Cheney was to see his daughter, Liz, follow in her father’s footsteps to serve in the House with courage and integrity.
“May it be a comfort to Lynne, Liz and Mary that so many are praying for them at this sad time.”
Pelosi and Cheney briefly served in the House together in the late 1980s. She first became Speaker in January 2007, two years before Cheney and former President George W. Bush left office. Throughout those two years, she was a frequent critic of the Bush-Cheney administration, particularly on the Iraq War, of which the then-vice president was a chief proponent.
Pelosi was one of 126 House Democrats to vote against the 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq.
She later found agreement with Cheney after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, when a mob of President Trump’s supporters sought to delay the certification of former President Biden’s 2020 victory.
In an August 2022 ad for his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the former vice president said that “in our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic” than Trump.
Earlier that year, Cheney accompanied his daughter, a vocal critic of Trump since Jan. 6, to the Capitol on the one-year anniversary of the riot. That day, he and Pelosi embraced, with the then-Speaker saying “we were very honored by his being there.”
He then backed former Vice President Harris in her 2024 election battle against Trump.
Cheney, 84, died Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Lynne, and daughters Mary and Liz.