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Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during a campaign stop in Millcreek Township, Erie County, Pa. on April 13. | Erie Times-News via AP Cruz: iPads replacing humans due to minimum wage

Ted Cruz assailed the concept of minimum wage as "bad policy" on Friday, suggesting that companies will ultimately choose machines over humans when it becomes more cost-efficient to do so.

“I think the minimum wage systematically hurts the most vulnerable," the Texas senator said in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box.

While noting that he believed it to be within an individual state's constitutional authority to have a minimum wage, pointing out New York and California as example.

"I think it’s bad policy," Cruz added. "And you know, one observation I make to folks is next time you go to a fast food restaurant and you start ordering on an iPad, you’re seeing the minimum wage.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Cruz promoted economic growth as his No. 1 priority as president.

"Every other problem we’ve got, whether it’s unemployment, whether it’s the debt and the deficit, whether it is strengthening and preserving Social Security and Medicare or whether it is rebuilding our military and keeping us safe, you gotta have growth to make it work," he said. "And we have been trapped in, in stagnation for the last seven years. And if we don’t turn that around, nothing else gets fixed."