--- title: Donald Trump Mocks Marco Rubio by Spilling Water on Stage description: After laying into each other that the Republican debate, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump escalated their fight in Texas rallies on Friday. canonical: https://time.com/4239357/donald-trump-marco-rubio-water-bottle-texas/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-26T19:56:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:49:29.451Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Mocks Marco Rubio by Spilling Water on Stage og:description: After laying into each other that the Republican debate, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump escalated their fight in Texas rallies on Friday. og:url: https://time.com/4239357/donald-trump-marco-rubio-water-bottle-texas/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a20fc8a621f6325/69887f43e20a876179a8fbb0/marco-rubio-trump-con.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: Donald Trump, president and chief executive of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, right, and Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and 2016 presidential candidate, speak during the Republican presidential primary og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Mocks Marco Rubio by Spilling Water on Stage twitter:description: After laying into each other that the Republican debate, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump escalated their fight in Texas rallies on Friday. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a20fc8a621f6325/69887f43e20a876179a8fbb0/marco-rubio-trump-con.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Donald Trump Mock Marco Rubio by Spilling Water on Stage > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ab186552-60a5-436a-9c99-52a741c9cda2&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Watch Trump Throw Water And Mock Rubio [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Trump Throw Water And Mock Rubio](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/P3KqqRH1.m3u8) (0:28)  _Published 2016-02-26_  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Feb 26, 2016 7:56 PM UTC  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Feb 26, 2016 7:56 PM UTC After [laying into each other](http://time.com/4238371/republican-debate-donald-trump-won-lost/?xid=tcoshare) that the Republican debate Thursday night, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and businessman Donald Trump escalated their fight in dueling Texas rallies on Friday. Friday morning, Rubio read Trump’s insulting tweets off his cell phone, making fun of the frontrunner’s spelling mistakes. Trump had tweeted: “Lightweight Marco Rubio was working hard last night. The problem is, he is a choker, and once a choker, always a chocker! Mr. Meltdown.” “He is a chocker. And once a chocker, always a’ — a choker, I guess that’s what he meant to say,” Rubio said when reading the tweet at his rally, [according to CNN](http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/26/politics/donald-trump-spelling-debate-tweet/index.html). He also turned one of Trump’s favorite insults against Rubio, that he sweats, back on Trump, saying he had “one of those little sweat mustaches,” that “he was having a meltdown” and even implying that Trump had wet his pants, [CNN reports](http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/26/politics/marco-rubio-attacks-donald-trump-wet-pants/). But at his own rally later in the day, after nabbing an [endorsement from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie](http://time.com/4239160/chris-christie-endorses-donald-trump-for-president/?5&xid=homepage), Trump responded in kind. He brought back the sweating insult in an hypothetical of Rubio meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “He walks in and he’s drenched. I have never seen a human being sweat like this man sweats. … It looked like he had just jumped into a swimming pool with his clothes on.” Trump then took out a water bottle and sprayed it around him while yelling, “It’s Rubio!” ## Transcript [ APPLAUSE ] It's Rubio. [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] That's water. 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