‘When you choose one Cheney, you get four’: Ex-US President George Bush reveals how he chose Dick Cheney as his vice president; here’s the inside story

Washington National Cathedral on Thursday (November 20, 2025) hosted a bipartisan show of respect and remembrance for former US vice president Dick Cheney. Two ex-presidents came: Republican George W. Bush, who eulogized the man who served him as vice president, and Democrat Joe Biden, who once called Cheney “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history” but now honors his commitment to his family and to his values.

“Solid and rare and reliable,” Bush said of his vice president, praising a man whose “talent and his restraint” exceeded his ego, according to news agency AP. “Smart and polished, without airs.”

How Bush Chose Cheney as His Vice President

While speaking during Cheney's funeral on Thursday, George W. Bush revealed that while searching for a running mate, he enlisted the help of a trusted source to take charge, and that person was Dick Cheney.

“Dick Cheney and I went through the files name by name. We talked over the various qualities I was looking for in a vice president: preparedness, mature judgment, rectitude, and loyalty. Above all, I wanted someone with the ability to step into the presidency without getting distracted by the ambition to seek it,” Bush said, as quoted by CNN.

“After weeks of these meetings, I began to have a thought I could not shake. I realized the best choice for the vice president was the man sitting right in front of me,” the former US president said.

Bush, who was eulogizing his former vice president, joked that he discovered in 2000 that “when you choose one Cheney, you get four.” He began his speech at Cheney’s funeral by acknowledging his wife and two daughters. “In a family so close, you dread the day when the circle is broken,” he said. “He sure loved you all, and he was proud of his family.”

Dick Cheney memorial service: Bush, Biden, Kamala Harris, among others, attend; Trump not invited

Trump, who has been publicly silent about Cheney’s death on November 3, 2025, was not invited to the memorial service. Moments before the service began, Bush and Biden and their wives were sitting in a row together, and former Vice Presidents Kamala Harris and Mike Pence were chatting side by side in their pew with Al Gore and Dan Quayle together behind them.

Biden greeted Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former longtime Senate leader, and his wife, former labor and transportation secretary Elaine Chao. Behind them sat Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker.

Daughter Liz Cheney, a former high-ranking House member whose Republican political career was shredded by Trump's MAGA movement, will join Bush in addressing the gathering at the grand church known as “a spiritual home for the nation.”

Others delivering tributes at Thursday’s funeral are Cheney’s longtime cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner; former NBC News correspondent Pete Williams, who was Cheney’s spokesman at the Pentagon; and the former vice president’s grandchildren.