is a lot of things, and we can now add “meme bamboozle victim” to the list. You see, decided to weigh in after personality “Big Cat” tweeted the famous “Hurricane Shark” meme referring to flooding on Los Angeles freeways after on .

“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, to being had — probably after being inundated with posts pointing out the obvious, according to . But, because , 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 , Hurricane Shark has been around for over a decade at this point — first appearing in 2011 after 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 , 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, during a catastrophic winter storm so he could go on vacation in Cancun. He 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,” .

What a schmuck.