Delivering the opposition response to the State of the Union isn’t an enviable task. The address is written before the State of the Union is delivered and often resembles a hostage video. Marco Rubio got off to a decent start tonight, especially since Bobby Jindal set the bar so low, but as the speech wore on, Rubio grew increasingly sweaty and fidgety. Then, any hope that his nervousness would only be noted in a few mean-spirited tweets was undone when he reached off-screen, grabbed a bottle of Poland Spring, and took a swig. Proving that he isn’t a GOP talking points–delivering robot might seem like a good thing, but this all too human need for life-sustaining H2O might have undone the party’s newly anointed savior.
Here’s Rubio in action. You can see what’s going through his head: Just maintain strong eye contact. Nobody will notice!
Afterward, Rubio tried to prove that he’s in on the joke with a shot of his answer to Clint Eastwood’s chair:
Unfortunately, his self-aware tweet couldn’t prevent Twitter from exploding over the revelation that sometimes people’s mouths get dry when they deliver a speech:
You can take a look at the long string of words that got Rubio into trouble, but this video sums up everything you need to know about the speech.
