During an interview in March, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell put a hypothetical question to Joe Biden: assuming Medicare for All legislation passed through both the House and the Senate, would Biden, as president, veto it? Biden’s answer somehow went even further than the usual liberal triangulation around questions of health care policy:

I would veto anything that delays providing the security and the certainty of health care being available now. If they got that through and by some miracle there was an epiphany that occurred and some miracle occurred that said “okay, it’s passed,” then you gotta look at the cost. I want to know, how did they find $35 trillion? What is that doing? Is it gonna significantly raise taxes on the middle class, which it will? What’s gonna happen?

Centrist Democrats have typically cloaked their opposition to single-payer health care in the language of pragmatism and the inherently tricky nature of getting major legislation through Congress. But, thanks to the nature of O’Donnell’s question, the former vice president was led to signal he’d veto Medicare for All regardless, on account of its supposedly prohibitive cost.