Just nine days before President-elect Trump took the oath of office in 2017, then-Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech in Washington in which he advocated a fundamental change in U.S. nuclear deterrence policy: a public declaration that America would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a future conflict.

“Given our nonnuclear capabilities and the nature of today’s threats, it’s hard to envision a plausible scenario in which the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States would be necessary or make sense,” Biden said.