Vice President Joe Biden revealed today that only agreed to serve as vice president for Barack Obama after Walter Mondale, convinced him to take the job.

“‘You have one purpose, that’s to serve the president, to serve the president,'” Biden recalled Mondale saying when he called the former vice president under Jimmy Carter for advice. Prior to that conversation, Biden said he had told Obama “I will do anything I can to help you, but I don’t want to be vice president.”