The 2016 vice presidential debate took place Tuesday with moderator Elaine Quijano guiding the candidates. Quijano, a CBS anchor, is the first Asian American to moderate a VP debate.
Contrary to her predecessor Lester Holt, she appeared to keep both the candidates within their speaking times. Quijano has been actively covering political stories this campaign season, most notably for her coverage of Latinos for Trump.
Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Tim Kaine came into the debate with a number of quick, catchy lines to throw at Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence.
“Do you want a ‘you’re hired’ President in Hillary Clinton or a ‘you’re fired’ President in Donald Trump?” Kaine asked.
Pence replied, saying “and when Donald Trump becomes President of the United States, we are going to have a stronger America.”
The two candidates battled on the controversies surrounding their respective presidential nominees, issues of economic policies, foreign policy, and police reform.
“The way you make communities safer, and the way you make places safer, is through community policing,” Kaine said in reference to a solution to police brutality in America.
He brought up Hillary Clinton’s policies for her mental health package which aims to train police officers to better respond to mentally ill suspects.
Alternately, Pence defended police actions and Donald Trump’s policies.
“We can’t use a broad brush of accusing police officers of institutional racism,” Pence said.
Kaine repeatedly brought up statements made by Trump concerning his taxes, Mexican immigrants and stop and frisk policies.
Pence, on the other hand, focused on Clinton’s email scandal, solving problems in the Middle East and Trump’s immigration policies. According to a post-debate CNN poll, Pence won by a close margin of just 6 percentage points.