The New York Times editorial board published a scathing critique of Wednesday’s main Republican candidate on Friday, saying the 11 candidates sent a scary message while ignoring too many issues.

“It felt at times as if the speakers were no longer living in a fact-based world where actions have consequences, programs take money and money has to come from somewhere,” the editorial stated. “Where basic laws — like physics and the Constitution — constrain wishes. Where Congress and the public, allies and enemies, markets and militaries don’t just do what you want them to, just because you say they will.”

ADVERTISEMENT

The board singled out Ben Carson and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) while ripping the candidates for their willingness to build a fence around the US-Mexico border as part of their immigration policy, noting that Rubio at one point was a co-author of an immigration reform bill.

“Do these people have to be sent to the Rio Grande Valley to see how ludicrous a border fence — over mountains, vast deserts, remote valleys and private property — would be?” the board asked. “And it won’t solve the problem they are railing against, which doesn’t exist anyway. Illegal immigration has fallen essentially to zero.”

The board titled its editorial, “Crazy Talk at the Republican debate,” pointing out the candidates’ refusal to discuss the country’s infrastructure, child poverty, and educational issues, among other concerns, while offering “no reassurance that grown-ups were at the table” regarding the attacks on Planned Parenthood, or policy concerning climate change.

“Peel back the boasting and insults, the lies and exaggerations common to any presidential campaign,” the editorial stated. “What remains is a collection of assertions so untrue, so bizarre, that they form a vision as surreal as the Ronald Reagan jet looming behind the candidates’ lecterns.”