Unfortunately for him, and the GOP, the most talked-about moment from Sen. Marco Rubio‘s Republican response to the State of the Union address last night was his thirst.

Rubio paused mid-speech and reached off-camera for a small water bottle, took a swig, a gave a gulp heard ’round America.

“I needed water, what am I going to do?” said Rubio on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I’m just glad the water was nearby,” he told “CBS This Morning.” Rubio told “Fox & Friends” he had a plan, all along: “I figured I would be better off taking the water and taking the hit for it than being unable to pronounce my words.”

2012 GOP VP nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, who gave the Republican response last year, went on “CBS This Morning” and had some advice for Rubio, and whoever does the speech next year: “My secret is, you put a cough drop in your mouth.”

Halls Mentholatum – 1. Rubio – 0. Here it is, if you haven’t seen it:

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“As the strange bed fellows that inaugurations are made, we just had the number three republican in the house (Rep. Kevin McCarthy-CA) taking an iPhone picture of Beyonce and Jay-Z,” said Brian Williams on NBC. A few minutes later on CBS, Scott Pelley added, “Talk about unity. In one shot you have Jay-Z and Paul Ryan. I don’t know under what circumstances you would ever have those men in the same frame.”

The crew on Fox News also recognized the Ryan/Jay-Z shot, with Brit Hume adding, “By the way, she looks stunning!” To which Chris Wallace joked, “Watch out. Brent Musberger got in trouble for that my friend.”

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• ABC’s Jonathan Karl gets the first network TV interview with GOP VP nominee Paul Ryan. Karl’s interview with the airs tonight on “World News.” Ryan has already spoken with local TV stations in Wisconsin.

• Tracy Snyder is leaving her role as evening assignment manager at NBC Newschannel for a Senior Desk Editor position at NBC News in London. Tracy, who has extensive international coverage under her belt, has spent the last 10 years at the affiliate news service in Charlotte.

• MSNBC/NBC anchor Veronica De La Cruz hosted a fundraiser Friday raising thousands of dollars for heart transplant patients and Hurricane Sandy victims. De La Cruz established Hope for Hearts in 2010 after her brother Eric died in 2009 while awaiting a heart transplant.

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“I was trying to move this along,” Crowley says. “The question was Benghazi … there was this point they both kind of looked at me, you know, Romney’s looking at me, the president is looking at me, and I wanted to move this along.”

Crowley also said she’s not backtracking. Watch:

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That’s down -27% from the 70 million who watched the one and only 2008 Vice Presidential debate between Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin. The most watch VP debate and tied for second-most watched of all debates. 12008 notwithstanding, last night’s debate had the highest VP debate viewership since the George H.W. Bush-Geraldine Ferarro debate in 1984. That debate nabbed 56.7 million viewers.

The Oct. 1980 debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan is the record-holder with 80.6 million tuning in, and that was only on three networks.

> Earlier: Fox News tops MSNBC/CNN Combined; CBS #1 on Broadcast

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• Update: Final Ratings: 51.4 Million Watch

Fox News is the most watched network with 10 million viewers, more than MSNBC (4.38 million) and CNN (4.15 million) combined.

For the broadcasters, according to Nielsen Fast National data, CBS was the most watched, followed by ABC then NBC, with less than 500,000 viewers separating the big 3 networks.

(As we saw with the first presidential debate  — watched by 67.2 million viewers — preliminarily Fox News was the most watched, but when finals came out ABC was on top.)

It’s unlikely last night’s debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan will get close to the numbers of the Biden-Sarah Palin face-off four years ago. 69.9 million viewers tuned in that night — tied with a Bush-Clinton-Perot debate in 1992 for the second most-watched debate ever.

• Cable News 9:00-10:30PM:

FNC: 10,019,827 in total viewers (3,057,099 in 25-54)
MSNBC: 4,378,671 in total viewers (1,619,542 in 25-54)
CNN: 4,145,951 in total viewers (1,523,882 in 25-54)

• Broadcast Fast Nationals 9-10:30PM:

CBS: 8,308,421 in P2+ (3,400,620)
ABC: 8,287,610 in P2+ (2,995,352)
NBC: 7,851,757 in P2+ (3,560,307)

• Broadcast Post-Debate Analysis 10:33-11:00PM:

NBC: 6,697,000 in P2+ (2,875,000 in 25-54)
ABC: 6,057,000 in P2+ (2,372,000 in 25-54)
CBS: 5,931,000 in P2+ (2,187,000 in 25-54)

• 8:00-11:00PM (cable news primetime)

FNC: 8,052,332 in total viewers (2,283,719 in 25-54)
MSNBC: 3,516,671 in total viewers (1,275,399 in 25-54)
CNN: 3,265,598 in total viewers (1,164,117 in 25-54)

Four years ago, Fox News broke a record when it drew 11.1 million viewers for the Biden-Palin debate, its most-watched program ever.

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Moderator Martha Raddatz will be referring to Rep. Ryan as “Mr. Ryan,” a request from the Romney-Ryan campaign.

Vice President Biden and Rep. Ryan will be seated next to each other and at the same table as Raddatz. This is similar to VP debates in 2000 and 2004, though not 2008, when Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin stood behind podiums.

While 69.9 million watched that Biden-Palin debate. Palin, now with Fox News, told Megyn Kelly today she’s never watched it: “Life goes on, you move forward,” said Palin. “I don’t rehash the past.”

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“I am happy that Jim Lehrer was willing to ask us our positions on issues, and we could describe those so it was not a big ‘gotcha’ night from the moderator,” Romney told Sean Hannity.

WATCH:

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• Our sister blog Lost Remote talks to Fox News Channel about a partnership the network has with Twitter during the RNC and DNC. “All of the social media tools including Twitter have speed up a process that has been around for as long as the media has,” said VP of Fox News digital Jeff Misenti.

• The executive producer of “Good Afternoon America” Ethan Nelson got a little surprise from his staff this week. Nelson was given an “ambush makeover” by stylist and author Amy E. Goodman. What happened? “Goodman freed him from his drab, behind-the-scenes wardrobe and transformed him into a scene-stealing newsmaker.”

• GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan is finally doing his round-robin interviews, talking to the evening news anchors and the cable news channels. Ryan was originally slated to do interviews with the morning shows, but that was canceled late yesterday.

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GOP VP nominee Paul Ryan will be sitting down with a handful of TV news outlets for a series of round robin interviews to air on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter tell TVNewser. Ryan is expected to speak with the network morning shows, and possibly a few other programs, they said.

Ryan has given a handful of interviews since being selected to be Mitt Romney‘s running mate earlier his month. Thursday is the final day of the RNC however, and will culminate with Romney’s speech. The interviews allow the day to begin with Ryan, and end with Romney. Appearing on the network morning shows guarantees the largest possible audience for the interviews.

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• Total day: FNC: 286 | MSNBC: *NA | CNN: 110 | HLN: 121

• Primetime: FNC: 187 | MSNBC: 182 | CNN: 89 | HLN: 177

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:	12a:
Fox News	TheFive:	Baier:	Shep:	Huckabee:	Hannity:	Greta:	Huckabee:	Hannity:
	266	264	253	172	174	214	142	141
MSNBC	Olympics:	Matthews:	Matthews:	Lockup:	Lockup:	Lockup:	Lockup:	Lockup:
	NA*	60	66	101	168	276	234	206
CNN	Newsroom:	Blitzer:	Newsroom:	Presents:	Morgan:	Newsroom:	Presents:	Morgan:
	83	88	98	90	74	105	84	83
HLN	Mysteries:	Mysteries:	Mysteries:	Mysteries:	Mysteries:	Mysteries:	Mysteries:	Mysteries:
	99	125	194	149	196	187	153	184

continued…

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As for Saturday, here are the cable news ratings for the announcement — the lead-up in the 8amET hour and the event in the 9am.

• Cable Ratings, Aug. 11, 2012, 8amET

continued…

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• FNC’s Brit Hume gets the first sit-down solo interview with GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan. Hume talks with Ryan tomorrow in Denver. Portions will air throughout the day, with the full interview on “Special Report with Bret Baier” at 6pmET.

• Greta Van Susteren will be hosting tonight’s “On the Record” from her home state of Wisconsin. She’ll be live from Rep. Ryan’s hometown of Janesville. Van Susteren interviewed House Speaker John Boehner in the Central Wisconsin city of Wausau Sunday. Gov. Scott Walker will also be a guest.

• Dan Senor, the husband of former NBC and CNN anchor Campbell Brown, becomes a senior adviser to Rep. Ryan. Politico reports, Senor “will be serving in a much broader role with Ryan, helping on things like debate prep and the convention speech.”

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NBC News began its special report at 9am with Brian Williams anchoring from London, joined by Peter Alexander in Norfolk, and Chuck Todd and David Gregory in Washington. CBS News broke in at 9:03 with Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis anchoring with Jan Crawford in Norfolk and Bob Schieffer in Washington. David Muir on ABC News began a special report at 9:10 with Jonathan Karl in Norfolk and George Stephanopoulos, by Skype from a well-appointed home.

Wolf Blitzer led coverage on CNN, Bret Baier on FNC, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was up for Chris Hayes‘ show with Andrea Mitchell in Norfolk. FBN and HLN also carried the announcement live.

ABC continued with its special report until 9:51, NBC and CBS until 9:52.

On Fox News Baier will continue until 11am when John Roberts picks up anchoring until 1pET.

FNC is producing a modified weekday schedule: “The Five” will be in for a special hour today at 5, Baier is back for “Special Report” at 6pm followed by Shepard Smith anchoring “Fox Report” at 7pm, “Huckabee” at 8, “Hannity” at 9 and the pride of Appleton, Wisconsin, Greta Van Susteren will host a live “On the Record” at 10pmET.

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