(WGHP) -- It’s been a whirlwind experience for Addison McDowell. He became a freshman in Congress after having little experience in government before. But when he ran for the Republican nomination for North Carolina’s 6th District, he had one overriding issue: securing the border and sto pping the flow of the deadly fentanyl that took his brother’s life a year or so ago. He says his alignment with President Trump on that issue was key to his victory. “The president has people ... who want to keep us safe, and so do I,” McDowell said. “So I'm going to be working with them every step of the way ... Fentanyl was an important thing for me and stopping the flow of that coming into our country. We're being invaded by drug cartels ... and I think that it's a very refreshing thing, as someone who's felt the effects of these things in our communities, to have a president that cares ... I hope that everyone in the 6th District knows I've got their back on this, and I'm fighting.” The other issue he’s taken on since being sworn in is American manufacturing jobs. He supports Trump’s tariffs. “When you have, for example, India. They charge a tariff on motorcycles that are imported to India from the United States. Harley-Davidson has a 100% tariff. So that means if a Harley – just for even numbers $10,000 – it's $20,000 in India. You know what our tariff is? On India, it’s 7%," he said. And McDowell is convinced that the president’s tariffs can change that. “We've had men and women forgotten about by Washington, D.C. politicians for too long,” McDowell said. “These are the working men and women whose manufacturing jobs went to China, went to Mexico. They went overseas, and they lost their jobs. So we are saying, 'We haven't forgotten about you.' We want to bring these manufacturing jobs back.” In the meantime, Elon Musk and his DOGE group have been working to reduce the size of the government. We asked McDowell, even if that’s the right policy, is Musk going around with a chainsaw, as a metaphor, going about this the right way? “Right now, it's a jolt to the system because we've had a runaway spending for too long," McDowell said. “President Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. He said Elon Musk is going to ... create ... the Department of Government Efficiency. They're going to find ways to save the taxpayers money. That’s what they're doing, and I've got their back.” See more from McDowell in this edition of the Buckley Report. ...read more read less