Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, in a bid to attract military voters in South Carolina on Tuesday, unveiled a plan to remake the armed forces while also striking against what he called a culture of political correctness in the Pentagon. Cruz pledged not to provide gluten-free military meals as short-hand for that culture.
"That's why the last thing any commander should need to worry about is the grades he is getting from some plush-bottomed Pentagon bureaucrat for political correctness or social experiments -- or providing gluten-free MREs," Cruz said aboard the USS Yorktown, a World War II-era aircraft carrier now serving as a museum, using the shorthand term for Meal, Ready-to-Eat, CNN reported.
A spokesman for the Department of Defense told TIME that the provision of gluten-free meals depends on the military branch.
During his speech, Cruz evoked a Reagan-style military policy that he said he would return America to a global position of strength.
"I am confident that if we put in the hard work we can, as Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s, rebuild our military so it will be so feared by our enemies and trusted by our allies that, God willing, we won't have to use it," Cruz said. "That is the essence of what President Reagan used to call 'peace through strength.'"
While campaigning in South Carolina ahead of Saturday's primary there, many of the candidates have aimed to portray themselves as tough on military issues because of the critical voting bloc among veterans and active military members in the Palmetto state.
The Rubio campaign criticized Cruz's record on military issues on Tuesday, including his votes in the Senate. "Throughout this campaign, Cruz has shown himself to be weak on national security and supporting the military," Rubio spokesman Joe Pounder said in a statement, The Washington Post reported. "Senator Cruz is the only candidate in this race who has consistently sided against our military and intelligence professionals and whose foreign policy vision changes with his poll numbers."
In recent polling, Trump leads in South Carolina in the six-person Republican field. In an average of recent polls compiled by RealClear Politics, Trump has 35 percent support, with Ted Cruz in second with 17.5 percent support. Rubio is in third with 15.8 percent.
