Sen. Ted Cruz Believed Sharks Were Swimming L.A. Streets During Hurricane Hilary

Sen. Ted Cruz fell victim to a seemingly obvious social media hoax during Hurricane Hilary ... because he truly believed there was a shark swimming through Los Angeles' flooded streets.

The U.S. Senator from Texas quote tweeted an image of a shark cruising through what seemed like a flooded L.A. freeway, and added his own technical assessment ... "Holy crap."

Well, good ol' Ted took the bait, hook, line, and sinker ... he'd reposted a Tweet from Barstool's Dan Katz, who claimed the shark photo was taken by a friend of his driving along L.A.'s 405 freeway.

Problem is ... the image is actually edited, and it's popped up a bunch over the past decade, usually when hurricanes hit the U.S. -- with the initial posting coming back in 2011 when Hurricane Irene slammed Puerto Rico.

Ted spends a lot of time on Elon Musk's app and the shark post went viral Sunday as the storm was dumping tons of water on California, but Ted somehow missed the community note giving context.

Interestingly, the shark photo also went viral during hurricanes in Ted's home state.

Ultimately, Ted realized he had been duped ... though he seemingly explained his thought process by saying, "In LA, you never know ..."