News

What Elaine Quijano Has Said About Donald Trump

by Melissa Cruz

CBS News Correspondent Elaine Quijano is the moderator for the Oct. 4 vice presidential debate, bringing in a Filipino-American perspective to the standoff between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence. Though she won't be dealing with Donald Trump himself, VP pick Pence will obviously bring in a majority of Trump's ideas to the debate stage. What has Quijano said about Trump in the past? The Asian-American anchor has written a few stories centered around the Republican nominee.

Perhaps her largest story on Trump was also her most controversial. In CBSN's piece "Nuestro Amigo: Latinos for Trump," Quijano explored the relationship the Latino-American community has to the presidential candidate. Specifically, the piece highlighted Latinos who lived in cities alongside the U.S.-Mexico border and advocated for Trump as president.

In a roundtable discussion of the piece, Quijano was asked what the Latino voters she spoke with thought of Trump's (financially impossible) plan to build a wall along the border:

So it's interesting they don't necessarily think he's going to do that. ...They say, look, he's a negotiator. This is something he's put out there, and it's only a starting point for the discussion to come. What they do like is what they perceive as his support for stronger border enforcement.

Other than her reported pieced, Quijano has largely seemed to stay disinterested when it comes to Trump. Though she did possibly let her personal feelings slip out once. When tweeting about Trump's speech on immigration that he gave in Mexico earlier this month, she wrote, "It promises to be an interesting day..." as though she was possibly expecting the worst from his time in Mexico.

It will be interesting to see if Quijano takes this beat on immigration into the debate next Tuesday, especially considering that the presidential debate commission has been criticized for not having a single Latino moderator working the presidential debates. Though Randy Falco, the President and CEO of Univision, called Quijano "a welcome addition" to the debate roster, her inclusion was "insufficient when taking into account past presidential cycles, future demographic trends and the important role Latinos play in the economic and social fabric of this great nation. Simply put: it's an abdication of your responsibility to represent and reflect one of the largest and most influential communities in the U.S."

Hopefully, though, Quijano will at least take Pence to task for the Trump campaign's repeated defaming of Latinos.