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Did Trump and Dick Cheney have a history of public disagreements?
Executive summary
Yes — available reporting shows a sustained, public pattern of disagreement between Donald Trump and Dick Cheney, especially after Cheney left office and increasingly in the decade before Cheney’s death; multiple outlets note Cheney’s public criticisms of Trump and Trump’s reciprocal absence or silence at Cheney’s funeral, and analysts connect those clashes to policy and personality differences [1] [2] [3].
1. A decades-long, asymmetric rivalry
Reporting frames the relationship as one that grew more contentious after Cheney left office: outlets say Trump and Cheney “stood at loggerheads” in the years after Cheney’s vice presidency, with clashes rooted in both policy and personality rather than a single incident [1]. The New York Times and Reuters describe Cheney as having “stood against” Trump in his later life and being an “acidic scold” of the president, which points to sustained public criticism from Cheney aimed at Trump [2] [4].
2. Public criticism from Cheney and his circle
Cheney and his family explicitly broke with Trump in high-profile ways. Coverage notes Liz Cheney’s role on the January 6 committee and her excoriating criticism of Trump — a dynamic that helped fuel Trump’s antipathy toward the Cheneys — and that Dick Cheney publicly warned about Trump’s threats to democratic norms [5] [1]. Multiple outlets report that Cheney even endorsed a Democrat (Kamala Harris) in 2024, a dramatic illustration of his rupture with the modern GOP and with Trump-aligned forces [6] [7].
3. Trump’s responses: silence, absence and animosity
News organizations focus less on detailed Trump-on-Cheney policy rebuttals and more on Trump’s conspicuous absences and muted public reaction to Cheney’s death: Trump ordered flags lowered to half-staff but offered no public tribute and was not invited to the funeral, which many sources portray as a symptom of his long-standing animosity toward the Cheneys [2] [8] [3]. Coverage also links Trump’s antipathy to Liz Cheney’s public criticism and the family’s break with him [5] [9].
4. Bipartisan attention at Cheney’s funeral underscores the split
Reporting on the Washington National Cathedral service highlights that former presidents and vice presidents — including Democrats and Republicans — attended while Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance, were not invited or did not attend. Outlets interpret that contrast as further evidence of how Cheney’s later-life willingness to speak against Trump set him apart from many in his party and produced real political estrangement [2] [3] [4].
5. Analysts: policy roots and ironies
Analysts and commentators explicitly note an irony: Cheney helped expand presidential power in ways that shaped the modern presidency, yet he later warned that Trump could abuse that power. Several pieces connect the substantive policy legacy (national security and expansion of executive authority) to the later personal and political clashes between Cheney and Trump [1] [10] [7]. Those analyses present a complex dynamic: shared institutional footprints but opposing views about how such power should be used and constrained.
6. Where sources agree — and where they differ
Sources converge on the core facts: public criticism from Cheney and Liz Cheney, Trump’s visible silence and non-invitation at the funeral, and commentaries tying the feud to post-2020 political battles [2] [3] [5]. They differ in emphasis: obituary and mainstream outlets (e.g., NYT, AP) stress the political rupture and bipartisan mourning, while opinion pieces (Rolling Stone, The Guardian) dig into historical ironies and responsibility for institutional changes that enabled Trump’s presidency [2] [10] [7].
7. What the available sources do not say
Available sources do not provide a comprehensive catalog of every public disagreement between the two men across all years; instead, they synthesize later-life clashes, family interventions (Liz Cheney), and the funeral-era symbolism [1] [5]. They also do not supply private conversations or undisclosed negotiations between the two that might nuance the public record — those are not found in current reporting (not found in current reporting).
8. Bottom line for readers
The record in the provided reporting shows a clear, public rift: Dick Cheney and his family publicly criticized Donald Trump, particularly over Trump’s actions around the 2020 election and Jan. 6; Trump reciprocated with animosity and a muted public response at Cheney’s death, including not being invited to the funeral — a denouement that multiple outlets read as the culmination of a years-long pattern of disagreement [5] [3] [2].