This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," February 14, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: After being called the Republican savior by Time magazine, the rising star of the GOP and a possible presidential candidate in 2016, it's no wonder Democrats are stooping to new ridiculous lows to target Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
Now it all started during the senator's response to the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday when Rubio, wait for it, he dared to take a single sip of water. Because there was no substantive issue to criticize, the liberal, left went viral and Rubio's quote "drinking problem" as one called it is now being called "Watergate." Even a possible career ender by Wolf Blitzer over at CNN. Pretty funny.
I can't imagine that Rubio is the only lawmaker to ever take a sip of water during a speech. iN fact, he's not. Watch on the screen and we plan to highlight well, some Democratic drinking habits and problems.
Joining me now with reaction, syndicated columnist, author, Pat Buchanan. Hi, Pat.
PAT BUCHANAN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST, AUTHOR: How are you doing, Sean?
HANNITY: I'm good, taking a nice drink of water.
Look, you know, I thought that Rubio gave the single best response to a "State of the Union" that I've seen, a really terrific speech. Handled it well, and it's a different audience coming out of the State of the Union, and they can't criticize the substance, so they go after taking a sip of water. How stupid is this?
BUCHANAN: Well, I think that Wolf Blitzer ought to look at his own longevity at CNN with Jeff Zucker coming in there, Sean.
HANNITY: You might be right, Pat. They might be calling for "Crossfire" any day now.
BUCHANAN: But, look, Marco Rubio gave a fine little speech and this thing has gone viral. The liberals have put it up. I looked it up tonight. It's about 1.3 million results. Everybody is talking about it.
But this doesn't compare if they are talking about any kind of problem. You know, with Bill Clinton when he introduced Michael Dukakis for 45 minutes and Barack Obama has had his own problems, that first debate he got wiped out.
Look, this is a little glitch and the first outing of a candidate who's not going to be running, if he does run, for about three years, it doesn't mean a hill of beans, it will be done within a week when all these folks to stop talking about it.
HANNITY: I love watching it. We have only on the other side of the screen, Pat, I don't know if you can see it, Barack Obama, all of these Democrats are taking sips of water. If the media paid as much attention to the gaffes or to Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, I would say, all right, it's fair game. But they didn't do that. Let's for example, show a few of Barack Obama's, well, gaffes he made over the years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, MAY 8, 2009: Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States, I've now been in 57 states, I think, one left to go.
OBAMA, APRIL 4, 2009: There's a lot of, I don't know what the term is in Austrian, wheeling and dealing.
OBAMA, MAY 26, 2008: On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience here today.
OBAMA, FEB 4. 2010: Representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world. Navy Corpsman Christian Bouchard.
Corpsman Bouchard.
The men and women like Corpsman Bouchard.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HANNITY: Pat, if you say in one speech corpse-man, it tells me you don't know what a Navy corpsman is. That's a lot worse than this.
BUCHANAN: Look, 57 states, you reminded me of it. Remember, I mean, is this more of a serious problem for say candidate Marco Rubio than candidate Barack Obama having to explain why he sat there for 20 years listening to the lovely sermons of Reverend Jeremiah Wright in Chicago?
This is a nothing, a little glitch. But they did succeed last summer in painting and defining Mitt Romney before he could define himself, and I think the very fact they're sort of piling on and trying to bring it up and put it in the public is to sort of define Marco Rubio as a young, sort of callow, nervous young man before Marco Rubio can define himself.
They know what they're doing and they've got the major media behind him. And they've already started -- and it tells you they think that Marco Rubio is a problem.
HANNITY: It was only, you're exactly right. There's only one Democrat that got it. And believe it or not, it was Van Jones, and he recognized that Rubio is now going to be a rising star and a threat.
Let me show you how bad it got. Your good friend Reverend Al over there at NBC, Pat, Reverend Al does, what looks to me like a "Saturday Night Live" skit. I mean, this is how obsessed NBC News has gotten with this whole taking a sip of water bit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MSNBC)
AL SHARPTON: The Republicans savior, Marco Rubio's big night and what a night it was.
OK, OK, where was I? Senator Rubio laid out the right-wing vision for America. And -- what was I saying? Rubio brings the truth last night. I'm hydrating just like the senator.
But what Rubio was saying before and after his water cooler moment it wasn't so funny. That's coming up right after I finish my drink.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: A lot of water. But we're showing all of these Democrats, Pat, they're all drinking water. You give speeches and I drink water during speeches.
BUCHANAN: Sure you always have, and tell the folks, have a bottle of water beside the podium, a glass of water and worried -- I do a lot of gestures and knock it off sometimes.
HANNITY: Exactly, exactly. I have the same problem. A lot of hand waving, you know.
BUCHANAN: Exactly right.
HANNITY: All right.
BUCHANAN: Look, it does show that they're piling on the guy and they're very concerned about the guy, but this is going to continue, but it's not a bad thing to have Marco Rubio be hit behind the line of scrimmage on the first time out. He knows what's coming. He's a young guy, a real asset, an attraction and he'll do just fine and this thing will be over in a week.
HANNITY: A lot of the Democratic narrative talking points that they use every campaign, they can't say he's rich. They can't say he's privileged, can't say Republicans hate minorities. There's a lot of their narrative, their go-to play book that they can't use with Marco Rubio and obviously they're going to have problems down the road.
BUCHANAN: I think we've got-- I think that Marco Rubio is one of them and I think you've got some good guys in the Republican Party, the governors as well, come on in 2014, 2016.
HANNITY: All right, Patrick J. Buchanan, good to see you and get yourself some Poland Springs.
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