Former Vice President Joe Biden, one of more than 20 candidates running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said he would not answer reporters' questions on his past positions at a campaign stop in Iowa on Tuesday.

But at a Mount Pleasant stop later in the day, Biden met with reporters in what's known as a "gaggle" or "scrum," when journalists gathering around a politician to ask questions. In that later media availability, the former vice president explained in detail his changing views on abortion.

At his first stop, the Delaware Democrat refused to answer a question on the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortions in most cases. Biden previously supported the measure but recently reversed his decision.

“I’m not answering rope-line questions, because I don’t hear them, and they get me in trouble," he told a reporter in Ottumwa.

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Although Biden did not take questions from the media in Ottumwa, he did discuss his positions with members of the crowd. A reporter for the Atlantic noted he had a long conversation with a Greenpeace activist.

An audience member also called on Biden to answer for his views on abortion.Tim Stocking, 58, from Memphis, Tennessee, shouted during Biden’s speech in Ottumwa: “What are you going to do about killing babies?”

Biden said he would talk to him after the event, and his staff took Stocking to a room to talk to the former vice president.

“He and I share the same faith. Catholic church, Catholic faith," Stocking told the Register following Biden’s remarks. "Where would he ever come up with, in any realm, an idea that abortion, killing children, is OK?"

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Stocking is a Republican who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. He says he currently plans to vote for the president again in 2020.

“The fact that he claims to be Catholic, to be raised Catholic, I don’t understand," he said. "And now to have the Hyde Amendment. To say not only are we going to kill kids, you’re going to pay for it, you don’t have any choice, your tax dollars are going to go towards it.”