US President Donald Trump on Saturday pressured Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas to support a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, posting the personal cellphone number of the chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee and urging Americans to call it.
The Sunshine Protection Act passed the House in July, but it faces roadblocks in the Senate where some Republicans are strongly opposed. Proponents, including the White House, argue that the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active. Detractors said permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings when children will be waiting for school buses and parents will be driving to work in darkness.
It was a remarkable escalation on Trump's part of a longstanding fixation shared by both men — with Trump supporting making daylight saving time permanent, and Cotton vociferously opposed — at a time just weeks before the midterms, when Republicans would prefer that the president focus on talking about affordability issues and the party's achievements. Cotton is also up for reelection this November, although that race is not expected to be competitive.
Trump calls daylight saving time ‘depressing’
Daylight saving time is that period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the United States are set one hour ahead of standard time. Not all states observe it — and under the bill, states can opt out of the change if their respective legislatures act to do so before the bill’s enactment.
“It’s a lot of work for a lot of people, running around for two days, changing all the clocks in the house,” Trump told reporters as his left the White House on Saturday for a rally in Vandalia, Ohio.
“It discombobulates everybody," he said.
We're about to lose an hour of sleep and the twice-yearly ritual of changing our clocks has a surprisingly strange history, reports Mava Moayyed. (Source: 1News)
Trump said the time change gives golfers less time on the greens and tennis players less time on the courts. He blamed Cotton for stopping the bill. “So, everyone in Arkansas, a State I love, and won 3 times, the last by by 34 points, tell Tom to, GET IT DONE! It will be appreciated by all,” Trump said on social media on Saturday morning, kicking off the fight.
Trump included a phone number with an Arkansas area code. The Associated Press called the number, but no one answered and the voicemail box was full.
Cotton, a member of Republican leadership, reiterated his opposition to permanent daylight saving time in a social media post of his own Saturday afternoon. He is not the only GOP senator who opposes the policy, though he has been among the most vocal opponents.
“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton wrote.
“Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
Trump promptly fired back in another post. “If Tom Cotton were putting Arkansas first, he would give them an extra hour of daylight and, more importantly, they wouldn’t have to run all over their houses, farms, work places, and everywhere else, twice a year, having to change their Clocks, and often forgetting to do so,” Trump said, adding that “that is really putting Arkansas FIRST.”
As his motorcade was rolling back to the White House from his golf course, Trump added that “a table full of very distinguished people just told me that they HATE, immediately after a mandatory time change, going home at night – and it’s DARK.”
“It’s depressing!" Trump continued.
"One of the gentleman stated that, ‘I just hate going home in darkness.’ It’s also, in Crime Ridden Blue States, a lot more dangerous to be walking home in the dark!”
A 2025 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that if forced to choose, most Americans would prefer to keep that extra hour of daylight in the evening. Only 12% of U.S. adults favor the current system of daylight saving time, which requires people in most states to change their clocks twice a year, while 47% oppose it and 40% are neutral.
Members of Congress have long been interested in the potential benefits and costs of daylight saving time since it was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. The Senate passed a bill four years ago to make daylight saving time permanent, but it stalled in the House.
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