Ted Cruz Fooled By Decade-Old 'Hurricane Shark' Meme During Tropical Storm Hilary

Ted Cruz is a lot of things, and we can now add “meme bamboozle victim” to the list. You see, the Republican Senator from Texas decided to weigh in on X (ugh) after Barstool Sports personality “Big Cat” tweeted the famous “Hurricane Shark” meme referring to flooding on Los Angeles freeways after Hurricane Hilary dumped a whole lot of rain on LA.

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“Friend of mine out in LA just took this picture on the 405,” Big Cat posted. “And yes, all news and media outlets you have my permission to use this. Wild.”
Despite the fact that this is clearly a joke, and Big Cat is known all over the internet as a goofus, the former presidential hopeful still took the bait.

“Holy crap,” is what Cruz quoted the post with.

I mean for the love of God, the original Big Cat post even got a “Readers added context” below it.

After just three minutes, Lyin’ Ted admitted to being had — probably after being inundated with posts pointing out the obvious, according to SF Gate. But, because Cruz is such a ballbreaker, he needed to own the libs just a little bit.

“I’m told this is a joke,” Cruz posted. “In LA you never know…” adding a shrug emoji. “And everyone please stay safe from the storm or otherwise.

It’s time for a little history lesson. According to Know Your Meme, Hurricane Shark has been around for over a decade at this point — first appearing in 2011 after Hurricane Irene hit Puerto Rico. It pops up pretty much whenever there’s a major storm in the U.S., and folks almost always fall for it. For the most part, they aren’t U.S. Senators, but shit happens. SF Gate reports that the original image of the shark came from a photo taken in 2005. It showed a kayaker paddling away from the shark, but since then the shark has been edited onto an unidentified street.

The outlet also points out that this is not Cruz’s first brush with natural disaster shame. Back in 2021, he famously peaced out of his home state of Texas during a catastrophic winter storm so he could go on vacation in Cancun. He later blamed his kids for convincing him to go on the trip. Father of the Year.

“I was trying to be a dad, and all of us have made decisions — when you’ve got two girls who have been cold for two days and haven’t had heat or power, and they’re saying, ‘Hey, look, we don’t have school, why don’t we go, let’s get out of here.’ I think there are a lot of parents that would be like, ‘Look, if I can do this, great.’ That’s what I wanted to do,” Cruz reportedly said at the time.

What a schmuck.