Bob Dole, a longtime senator, presidential candidate, and World War II veteran who survived life-threatening injuries before going on to become a leader of the Republican Party, died in his sleep, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation announced in a statement on Sunday. He was 98.

Dole’s casket will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday so lawmakers can pay their respsects, Congressional leaders announced in a joint statement on Monday. The ceremony will involve a formal arrival and departure.

“Senator Dole was an extraordinary patriot, who devoted his entire life to serving our nation with dignity and integrity,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement.  “Putting his life on the line to defend our nation, he was awarded two Purple Hearts for his valor and sacrifice on the battlefield – and, when he came home, served as an inspiration to millions of Americans living with disabilities."

"From the Well of the House to the Floor of the Senate, as a presidential candidate and as an elder statesman, he was one of the foremost advocates for our Servicemembers, veterans and military families," she continued. "May it be a comfort to his loving wife, his dear daughter and all his loved ones that a grateful nation joins them in mourning during this sad time.”

“Senator Dole exemplified the greatest generation, and while I never had the pleasure of serving in the Senate with him, his reputation and his achievements, and most of all his character preceded him,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.  “I always admired his steadfast advocacy for veterans and for Americans with disabilities and his love for his country.  Rest in peace, Senator Dole.”

“Whatever their politics, anyone who saw Bob Dole in action had to admire his character and his profound patriotism,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, said. “Those of us who were lucky to know Bob well ourselves admired him even more.  A bright light of patriotic good cheer burned all the way from Bob’s teenage combat heroics through his whole career in Washington and through the years since.  We look forward to honoring his life and legacy at the Capitol.”

"It is with heavy hearts we announce that Senator Robert Joseph Dole died early this morning in his sleep," the foundation wrote in a Twitter post. "At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years."

Born in Russell, Kansas, in 1923, Dole was a star athlete who went on to play for the basketball, football and track teams at the University of Kansas, but his enrollment was interrupted when he enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War II.

In 1945, while charging a German position in northern Italy toward the end of the war, Dole was hit by a shell fragment that crushed two vertebrae and paralyzed his arms and legs. Dole, a platoon leader, spent three years recovering in a hospital and never regained use of his right hand.

To avoid embarrassing those trying to shake his right hand, Dole always clutched a pen in it and reached out with his left.

Dole was first elected to represent Kansas in Congress in 1960, the beginning of a 36-year career on Capitol Hill which ended with him leading the Republican party in the Senate and becoming one of the most powerful and influential Congressional leaders of his era, forging bipartisan compromises 

Dole first represented a House district in the western part of Kansas, where he voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, despite his opposition to much of then-President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" domestic programs.

Eight years later, he was elected to the Senate, where his career really began to take off: He antagonized his Senate colleagues with fiercely partisan and sarcastic rhetoric, delivered at the behest of then-President Richard Nixon. Dole was rewarded for his loyalty with the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee in 1971, before Nixon’s presidency collapsed in the Watergate scandal.

He served served as a committee chairman, majority leader and minority leader in the Senate during the 1980s and ’90s. Altogether, he was the Republicans’ leader in the Senate for nearly 11½ years, a record until Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell broke it in 2018. It was during this period that he earned a reputation as a shrewd, pragmatic legislator, tireless in fashioning compromises.

After Republicans won Senate control, Dole became chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee and won acclaim from deficit hawks and others for his handling of a 1982 tax bill, in which he persuaded Ronald Reagan’s White House to go along with increasing revenues by $100 billion to ease the federal budget deficit.

But some more conservative Republicans were appalled that Dole had pushed for higher taxes. Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich branded him “the tax collector for the welfare state.”

Dole became Senate leader in 1985 and served as either majority or minority leader, depending on which party was in charge, until he resigned in 1996 to devote himself to pursuit of the presidency.

Dole could be merciless with his rivals, whether Democrat or Republican. When George H.W. Bush defeated him in the 1988 New Hampshire Republican primary, Dole snapped: “Stop lying about my record.” If that pales next to the scorching insults in today’s political arena, it was shocking at the time.

But when Bush died in December 2018, old rivalries were forgotten as Dole appeared before Bush’s casket in the Capitol Rotunda. As an aide lifted him from his wheelchair, an ailing and sorrowful Dole slowly steadied himself and saluted his one-time nemesis with his left hand, his chin quivering.

In a vice presidential debate two decades earlier with Walter Mondale, Dole had famously and audaciously branded all of America’s wars that century “Democrat wars.” Mondale shot back that Dole had just “richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man.”

Dole at first denied saying what he had just said on that very public stage, then backed down, and eventually acknowledged he’d gone too far. “I was supposed to go for the jugular,” he said, “and I did — my own.”

He shaped tax policy, foreign policy, farm and nutrition programs and rights for the disabled, enshrining protections against discrimination in employment, education and public services in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Today’s accessible government offices and national parks, sidewalk ramps and the sign-language interpreters at official local events are just some of the more visible hallmarks of his legacy and that of the fellow lawmakers he rounded up for that sweeping civil rights legislation 30 years ago.

He thrice sought the presidency, most recently in 1996, when he won the Republican nomination only to see President Bill Clinton re-elected. He sought his party’s presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988 and was the 1976 GOP vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket with President Gerald Ford.

The 1996 campaign, Dole’s last, was fraught with problems from the start. He ran out of money in the spring, and Democratic ads painted the GOP candidate and the party’s divisive House speaker, Gingrich, with the same brush: as Republicans out to eliminate Medicare. Clinton won by a large margin.

Relegated to private life, Dole became an elder statesman who helped Clinton get a chemical-weapons treaty passed. He also tended his wife’s political ambitions. Elizabeth Dole ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, then served a term as senator from North Carolina.

In 1997, then-president Bill Clinton honored Dole with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

"Son of the soil, citizen, soldier and legislator, Bob Dole understands the American people, their struggles, their triumphs and their dreams,” Clinton said of Dole, his onetime political rival. 

“Our country is better for his courage, his determination and his willingness to go the long course to lead America.”

Dole also endeared himself to the public as the self-deprecating pitchman for the anti-impotence drug Viagra and other products.

He also continued to comment on issues and endorse political candidates.

In 2016, Dole initially backed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the GOP presidential nomination. He later warmed to Donald Trump and eventually endorsed him.

But six weeks after the 2020 election, with Trump still refusing to concede and espousing baseless, unfounded claims of voter fraud, Dole told The Kansas City Star, “The election is over.”

He said: “It’s a pretty bitter pill for Trump, but it’s a fact he lost.”

In September 2017, Congress voted to award Dole its highest expression of appreciation for distinguished contributions to the nation, a Congressional Gold Medal. That came a decade after he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Congress honored Dole again in 2019 by promoting him from Army captain to colonel, in recognition of the military service that earned him two Purple Hearts.

Dole devoted his later years to the cause of wounded veterans, their fallen comrades at Arlington National Cemetery and remembrance of the fading generation of World War II vets.

Thousands of old soldiers massed on the National Mall in 2004 for what Dole, speaking at the dedication of the World War II Memorial there, called “our final reunion.” He’d been a driving force in its creation.

“Our ranks have dwindled,” he said at the time. “Yet if we gather in the twilight it is brightened by the knowledge that we have kept faith with our comrades.”

In February, Dole announced that he was battling Stage IV lung cancer and would begin undergoing treatment.

"While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant challenges of their own," Dole, then 97, wrote in a statement at the time.

Dole is survived by his wife, former North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and his daughter, Robin. 

In a statement Sunday, President Joe Biden rembembered Dole's legacy of service, and praised his longtime friend and former colleague for his work in the Senate, where Dole championed the Americans with Disabilities Act and helped lead the Social Security Commission to secure benefits for millions of Americans. 

“Bob was an American statesman like few in our history,” Biden wrote. “A war hero and among the greatest of the Greatest Generation. And to me, he was also a friend whom I could look to for trusted guidance, or a humorous line at just the right moment to settle frayed nerves.

"I will miss my friend,' Biden continued. "But I am grateful for the times we shared, and for the friendship Jill and I and our family have built with Liddy and the entire Dole family.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers and other public figures on Sunday shared statements and took to Twitter to mourn Dole’s passing. 

In a stgatement, former president Barack Obama remembered Dole as a "war hero, a political leader, and a statesman — with a career and demeanor harkening back to a day when members of the Greatest Generation abided by a certain code, putting country over party."

“Bob Dole dedicated his entire life to serving the American people, from his heroism in World War II to the 35 years he spent in Congress," said former president Bill Clinton. "After all he gave in the war, he didn’t have to give more. But he did. His example should inspire people today and for generations to come.” 

“Whatever their politics, anyone who saw Bob Dole in action had to admire his character and his profound patriotism," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "Those of us who were lucky to know Bob well ourselves admired him even more. A bright light of patriotic good cheer burned all the way from Bob’s teenage combat heroics through his whole career in Washington through the years since. It still shone brightly, undimmed, to his last days."

"Bob Dole lived the kind of full, rich, and deeply honorable American life that will be impossible for any tribute today to fully capture," McConnell said.

Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Republican senator and presidential candidate, John McCain, called Dole “the last of the lions of the Senate.”

“When I think of the greatest generation, I think of Senator Bob Dole—a man who dedicated his life to serving our country,” Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and former presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter.

"Bob Dole was a soldier, a legislator, & a statesman," said former House speaker and Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan. "He always stood for what was just & right."

"I was honored to award him the Congressional Gold Medal & I’ll always be grateful for his service to our country, Ryan continued. "My thoughts are with the Dole family as we mourn this American hero."

“Senator Bob Dole was an honorable statesman and American hero who had an unwavering commitment to this country and those who’ve fought to protect us in uniform,” wrote Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. “My heart goes out to his wife Elizabeth and his loved ones as they grieve his loss. May he Rest In Peace.”

“Barbara & I are sad to hear of passing of war hero/Senate Majority Ldr /presidential nominee Bob Dole He was a dedicated public servant + kind + funny + hard worker + a true patriot,” tweeted Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “We send our love to Elizabeth & his family …”

“Bob took me under his wing when I came to the Senate & I couldn’t hv had a better senator to learn from,” Grassley continued, sharing a photo of the two. “He was a best friend & mentor God bless the gr8 Bob Dole[.]”

"Bob Dole served his country with courage on the battlefield, and with dignity in the Senate," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote on Twitter. "Jane and I send our condolences to his family."

“Today I join all Americans in mourning the passing of Senator Bob Dole — a heroic WWII veteran, committed statesman, and passionate advocate for those with disabilities,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., said on Twitter. 

“My thoughts are with his family and loved ones," Smith added.

“Bob Dole was a giant of the Senate," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the longest-serving sitting senator. "I remember the large number of Republican and Democratic Senators gathering on the Floor to praise him when he stepped down from the Senate. Traveling with him, working with him and writing legislation with him are among my fondest memories of the Senate.”

Others also remembered Dole’s decades of public service.

“So saddened to hear of Senator Bob Dole’s passing,” Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said in a tweet. “A war hero, a respected politician, and a supporter of freedom all over the world. But in particular we are grateful that he always stood by the people of Kosovo in our struggle for independence. Rest in peace dear friend.”

Bob Dole “was a great American & he will be greatly missed,” Franklin Graham, the president of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and international relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse, wrote on Twitter. “He represented the conservative voice across the country & stood for truth & integrity. Our thoughts & prayers are with his wife Elizabeth & their family.”

“It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to Bob Dole, an American hero & a proud Kansan,” the Kansas Republican Party wrote. “We offer our sincere condolences to the Dole family; we share your deep loss.”

“Thank you, @SenatorDole, for an amazing life of service to Kansas and the United States.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.