Jason Noble

The Des Moines Register

BOONE, Iowa — Presidential candidate Ted Cruz said the anti-government activists who have taken over a federal building in rural Oregon should “stand down” during his first stop in a long campaign swing through the state on Monday.

“Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest against the government, but we don’t have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence on others,” Cruz said. “So it is our hope that the protesters there will stand down peaceably, that there will not be a violent confrontation.”

Armed militants, led by the son of prominent anti-government activist Cliven Bundy, took over the headquarters of the remote Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., over the weekend to protest federal control of western lands. They’ve occupied the federally owned site and said they intend to turn it over to local residents.

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Cruz added, “There is no right to engage in violence against other Americans, and it is our hope and prayer that that situation resolves itself peaceably sooner rather than later.”

His comments came in a short news conference with reporters outside a Christian bookstore here, his first of 28 campaign events in Iowa scheduled through Saturday. They were among the first responses to the Oregon situation from the large presidential field.

By calling on the armed activists to “stand down,” Cruz struck a much more moderate tone than he has previously with regard to the Bundy family and western activism against federal land policies.

In 2014, Cruz called for reducing federally owned lands, said the battle between ranchers and the government resulted from federal “authoritarianism” and suggested that a confrontation instigated that year by Cliven Bundy in Nevada was the “unfortunate and tragic culmination of the path that President Obama has set the federal government upon.”

In Boone and in subsequent west-central Iowa stops in Carroll, Guthrie Center and Winterset, Cruz met crowds of well over 100 and ticked off his top priorities should he be elected president.

On his first day in office, Cruz said, he would rescind many of President Obama’s executive orders, open an investigation into the women’s health organization and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, order federal agencies to cease what he described as intrusions into Americans’ religious freedom, nullify the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran, and move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“The single biggest difference between me and the very, very fine men and women standing on that debate stage is that with me when I tell you I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do exactly what I said I’m gonna do,” he said, referring to other GOP presidential candidates.

After hearing a nearly identical speech from Cruz at a lunch-hour visit to a steakhouse and lounge in Carroll, retired secretary Jean Lees said she could see herself supporting Cruz but was leaning toward the candidate she referred to simply as “The Donald” — that is, businessman Donald Trump.

“I think it’s time the Republican Party had a junkyard dog on the ballot,” Lees said. “We’re tired of being nice because the other side does not play nice in any way, shape or form.”

Lees said she had supported George W. Bush and Mitt Romney in previous caucuses but was fed up with what she called “career politicians.”

“They talk a good story and it always ends up being business as usual,” she said.

Cruz was accompanied at all the stops by Rep. Steve King, the arch conservative congressman who represents much of western Iowa and who has formally endorsed Cruz last month.