Harding vetoed a total of 6 bills (5 regular vetoes and 1 pocket veto), none of which were overruled by Congress.

Laddie Boy was presented to President Harding by Charles Quetschke of Caswell Kennels and became a celebrity during the Harding administration. He had his own hand-carved chair to sit in during Cabinet meetings and was the first "First Dog" to be regularly covered in the national press. After the president's death in 1923, Florence Harding gave Laddie Boy to Harry Barker, her favorite Secret Service agent.

Although he had no children with First Lady Florence Harding, one of his mistresses, Nan Britton, claimed Harding fathered her child a year before his Presidential campaign. Harding's political allies attacked her and questioned her credibility, but in 2015, DNA samples from relatives of Harding and Britton's grandson confirmed she was telling the truth. Their daughter, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, died in 2005. She was Harding's only child.

Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco while on a western tour and was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge. Harding's death came as a great shock to the nation. Although scandals would later come to light that eroded his popularity, he was, at the time of his death, one of the most popular U.S. presidents to that point in American history.

On the evening of August 2, 1923, Florence Harding was reading him "A Calm Review of a Calm Man," a flattering article about the president from The Saturday Evening Post. She paused to fluff his pillows, and he told her, "That's good. Go on, read some more." which were to be his last words. She resumed reading, and within a few seconds, Harding twisted convulsively, gasped, and collapsed in his bed. Mrs. Harding summoned the doctors, but they were unable to revive the President, and Warren G. Harding was pronounced dead a few minutes later at the age of 57.