Former Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that he never heard about possible plans for him to replace Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate last year until former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile wrote about it in her book.

“I give you my word, the first time I or anyone on my staff heard anything about that was in the book, number one,” Biden told NBC.

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Biden said he “would never have taken” the position, which Brazile recently said she thought about offering to the then-vice president due to Clinton’s health problems. But Biden said he never would have agreed to take Clinton’s place.

“I was for Hillary. I did 83 campaign events for Hillary,” Biden said. “She would’ve been a first-rate president and at that point I had made the judgment well before that I was not prepared to run for president. I was not ready in terms of my family, so no, I never would have done it.”

Brazile claimed that Biden and other Democratic leaders’ staff officials contacted her after Clinton fainted at a Sept. 11 memorial event in 2016.

“Gee, I wonder what he wanted to talk to me about?” Brazile wrote. “No matter my doubts and my fears about the election and Hillary as a candidate, I could not make good on that threat to replace her.”