The 76-year-old former senator from Delaware pointed to the GOP’s 2016 blockade of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court ― a bitter dispute to this day. Biden claimed 12 former Republican colleagues in the Senate expressed concerns to him in private about not allowing Garland a confirmation hearing or a vote in the Senate.

Republican lawmakers, Biden added, are worried about disagreeing with Trump and facing a GOP primary challenge because of it.

“This ain’t your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said, repeating one of his favorite refrains.

It’s not the first time Biden has touted the return of bipartisanship in Congress, either. Last month, he said he anticipated an “epiphany among many of my Republican friends” in the future.

While it’s possible Biden was delivering a message targeted at independent voters, his theory about a sudden wellspring of bipartisanship evokes a nostalgic picture of a far less polarized Congress, one in which lawmakers refrained from partisan acrimony and worked with each other in search of agreement.

These days, however, major legislation often requires large congressional majorities as well as control of the White House. And it requires convincing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring Democratic legislation to the floor for consideration, something he has steadily refused to do.

“They are a minority party, and they’re using every procedural trick they can ― like voter suppression ― to maintain as much power as they can,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Tuesday. “They’re using it to play a minority hand to their strength. And I don’t think they’re suddenly going to decide, ‘OK, we’re a minority party now, we’re just going to be a loyal opposition.’”

Kaine, the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said that what could spur the Republicans to reassess their strategy is a “drubbing of historic proportions” in elections up and down the ballot.

“Then they may say we’ve got to look in the mirror,” Kaine added.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), meanwhile, offered a more pithy response when asked if he believed Republicans would come to their senses after Trump leaves the White House.