During an interview for "This Week" with ABC's Jonathan Karl, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas smiled when asked about comments by Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, who called him a "dirty syrup guzzler," earlier this year - which was a reference to Cruz having been born in Canada. Cruz said he sent Stewart, who he thinks is a "funny guy," a bottle of Texas syrup and invited him to visit.

"I will tell you, in response to that, I did send Jon Stewart a letter saying that I rarely guzzled syrup," the Texas Republican said. "But any time that I did, it was Texas syrup. And I sent him a bottle of Texas syrup and invited him to a syrup festival in the State of Texas," Cruz said.

Earlier in the interview, Karl also asked Cruz about some of the harsh criticisms from his peers, including being called a "wacko bird" by fellow Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

"I cannot control insults that others will choose to hurl. What I can control is that I have not and will not reciprocate. And my focus will remain on the substance," Cruz said. "Because I think - at the end of the day, I think most Americans don't really care about a bunch of politicians in Washington bickering back and forth."

"They're interested in solving the problems we've got," he added.

You can see more of Karl's interview with Cruz tomorrow on "This Week."

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This post has been updated