Trump, Vance Not Invited to Dick Cheney’s Funeral

President Trump and VP Vance were not invited to former vice-president Dick Cheney’s funeral, it has emerged.

Cheney, who served in George W Bush’s administration, was a fierce critic of Trump’s, describing him as a “coward” and the greatest threat to the American republic in the nation’s history. The Republican politician voted for Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.

Speaking on Thursday morning, Vance said: “My condolences go to Dick Cheney and his family, obviously there are some political disagreements there but he was a guy who served his country, we certainly wish his family all the best in this moment of grieving.”

Cheney’s funeral was held at the Washington National Cathedral, where former presidents Dwight D Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush and Jimmy Carter were memorialised.

Among the guests were George W Bush and his wife, Laura; Joe and Jill Biden; Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president during his first administration, and his wife, Karen; and Nancy Pelosi, the former US House speaker.

Biden sat between Harris and the former president. Harris appeared to spend more time chatting to her one-time rival Pence than her former boss, while Doug Emhoff, her husband, did not appear to be in attendance.

While the guest list is at the discretion of the family, no convention dictates that former presidents should attend the funeral of a former vice-president.

On Thursday, however, all living vice-presidents were in attendance, including Al Gore and Dan Quayle.

A prayer was said over Cheney’s coffin before it was carried into the cathedral by uniformed soldiers.

Bush described his vice-president as “solid and rare and reliable”, praising a man whose “talent and his restraint” exceeded his ego.

“There was so much to like and admire about Dick Cheney,” Bush said, adding that his friend and colleague was “totally devoted to protecting the United States and its interests”.

Cheney, who it is often joked chose himself as the former president’s running mate while conducting interviews for the spot, could not have been a better man for the job, George Bush Snr said, according to his son.

He was “smart and polished, without airs”, Bush added.

Following the announcement of his death on Nov 3, aged 84, from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, Trump did not offer any personal comments.

“I know the president is aware of the former vice-president’s passing. And as you saw, flags have been lowered to half-staff in accordance with statutory law,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said at the time.

Cheney became a target of Trump after his daughter Liz, a former Republican representative for Wyoming, became the leading critic of the president’s attempts to stay in power after his 2020 election defeat. Trump has repeatedly threatened to “lock up” Cheney.

Cheney, a former Republican representative for Wyoming, said her father “knew that bonds of party must always yield to the single bond we share as Americans”, as she told how he was inspired by Democratic president John F Kennedy

“For him, a choice between defence of the constitution and defence of your political party was no choice at all,” she said.

Cheney had supported the Republicans in 2016, despite Trump’s criticism of his administration.

He is considered the most powerful vice-president in history, and played a large part in Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

This made him a polarising figure, although the attendees at Cheney’s memorial were from across the board.

Washington National Cathedral, a noted DC building, took 83 years to build, finally opening its doors in 1983. It was packed with politicians and high-profile figures from across the political spectrum on Thursday, reflecting its rich history.

For Eisenhower’s 1969 funeral, the Second World War general was dressed in his wartime military uniform and, at his request, placed in a simple, government-issued casket that was meant for regular US soldiers, according to the White House Historical Association.

At Ronald Reagan’s funeral in 2004, Margaret Thatcher – a partner of Reagan’s in confronting the Soviet Union – was one of the attendees, but her eulogy, recorded weeks earlier as her health was deteriorating, was aired to mourners by video.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, who negotiated over nuclear arms with Reagan in the final years of the Cold War, was also there.

For astronaut Neil Armstrong, whose funeral was also held at the cathedral, eulogies meshed the divine with the extraterrestrial. Armstrong’s legacy was already linked to the church, as a sliver of moon rock collected by his Apollo 11 mission was melded into a stained-glass window there known as the “Space Window” since its dedication in 1974.

There is a selective list of American titans who are buried within the cathedral compound.

Woodrow Wilson is the only president who is buried there, along with first lady Edith Wilson.

The ashes of Matthew Shepard, the gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming, on Oct 6 1998, are also interred at the cathedral.

Even some of the cathedral’s ornate 215 stained-glass windows tell the story of the nation.

Stained-glass windows commemorating Confederate Generals Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson were removed in 2017. New windows with a racial justice theme replaced the old ones in 2023.

Many presidents have visited the cathedral for prayer. During the Iran hostage crisis, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, the former vice-president, gathered there to pray for the captives held at the US embassy in Tehran.

Inaugural prayer services have also been held for Reagan, both presidents Bush, Barack Obama and, most recently, Trump.