Madison Cawthorn Wants to Defuse the G.O.P.’s ‘Generational Time Bomb’

That’s a big one. But for so long, especially when you look at Congressman Paul Ryan, he had run for so long on being the one to really get us closer to a balanced budget. But then we really didn’t see any attempt to get closer to a balanced budget, in my opinion, and then we went further and further into debt.

Especially when you think about the Affordable Care Act, how we had to pass an amended version of the farm bill — you can go on and on.

There’s been a lot of discussion about how young Democrats diverge from older Democrats, but not as much on the Republican side. Are there areas where you feel like you bring a different perspective to the table than older Republicans?

Well, I like the environment. I think anybody who owns land or really likes going out hunting, they care about the environment as well.

I do have very strong conservative values. I think the place where we really do differ is that I believe I can carry the message of conservatism in a way that doesn’t seem so abrasive — that has better packaging, I would say, better messaging.

What does that better packaging look like?

You look at border security — after 2015, 2016, when we really started talking about the crisis on our southern border, I believe the way that it was messaged came across as if we were xenophobic, when that’s not the case at all. I believe all of us love legal immigration. We love how the diversity adds to our country.

If it had been messaged properly, we would have said this is because of national security. We have cartels on our southern border that do billions of dollars of revenue every single year. They’ve shown that they can defeat the Mexican military anytime they want. And so if they are able to effectively get people across our border at any point they choose, I think that’s a major security threat. I think if we had conveyed that that is the reason we want more security, it would have gone over much better.