Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said conservatives needed to 'call men back to responsibility,' in a new interview that .
'Spending your time on video games, spending your time watching porn online while doing nothing is not good for you, your family, or this country,' Hawley said.
The Missouri Republican also suggested the left should be blamed for men's undoing.
Hawley sat down with Axios' Mike Allen, who asked him about recent remarks he made at the National Conservatism Conference over Halloween weekend in Orlando.
There, he said 'that after years of being told ... that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness, and pornography, and video games.'
'We need the kind of men who make republics possible,' Hawley said.
Allen wanted to know why Hawley saw masculinity as his 'new big issue.'
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (right) talked to Axios' Mike Allen (left) about masculinity for an episode of Axios on HBO that aired Sunday
'Well, what I think what the left is doing is attacking America,' Hawley replied. 'They're saying that America is systemically oppressive, and men are systemically responsible.'
Hawley was then asked to define a man.
'Well, a man is a father, a man is a husband, a man is somebody who takes responsibility,' he answered.
'As conservatives, we've got to call men back to responsibility,' the Republican senator continued.
He noted that more and more men aren't working - and thus are playing video games and watching pornography, while also not getting married.
Allen pushed back asking if Hawley meant what he was saying 'literally' - that 'what liberals are doing' was causing men to play more Donkey Kong and watch more PornHub.
'Well, what I mean literally is that the liberal attack, the leftwing attack on manhood says to men you're part of the problem,' Hawley replied. 'It says that your masculinity is inherently problematic, it's inherently oppressive.'
Hawley said 'policy over many years' created this perceived problem.
'You've got 16 million men Mike, who are idle, who don't have anything to do. Now partly that's their own responsibility, but also it's partly because jobs have dried up in many cities across America, and rural areas too,' Hawley said.
'I think you put together lack of jobs, you put together fatherlessness, you put together the social messages that we teach our kids at school,' he continued. 'I think we have to confront that and its effects.'