President Donald Trump has turned the long-running battle over daylight saving time into an extraordinary public feud with Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, publishing what he said was the Arkansas senator’s personal cellphone number and urging voters to call him directly and demand that he stop blocking legislation to end the twice-a-year changing of the clocks.
Trump’s move came as he intensified his push for the Sunshine Protection Act, legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the United States. The bill passed the House in July by a lopsided 308-117 vote but has since run into resistance in the Senate, with Cotton emerging as one of its most vocal Republican opponents.
“Everybody in Arkansas, Tom Cotton, a friend of mine, is holding up a very important Bill,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, accusing Cotton of standing in the way of what the president argues is an overwhelmingly popular change.
Trump then took the highly unusual step of posting Cotton’s cellphone number.
“To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself,” Trump wrote. “Call Tom on his cellphone.”
Reporters who called the number reached either voicemail or a message indicating that the recipient was unavailable, with the voicemail box at one point becoming full.
Trump argues that Americans are fed up with moving their clocks forward and backward every year and that keeping daylight saving time permanently would provide an additional hour of afternoon and evening sunlight during the winter.
“We want to get away from this ridiculous way and custom of — every twice a year, turning your clocks back, turning your clocks forward, being late to dinner, being late for very important meetings, it’s ridiculous,” Trump told reporters.
“It discombobulates everybody,” the president said.
Trump has also argued that permanent daylight saving time would benefit sports and recreation by keeping daylight later into the afternoon and evening.
“You know who wants it? The farmers want it. You know who wants it? Sports want it,” Trump said. “Professional sports and amateurs that would like to play tennis at night, would like to play golf a little bit without having to run home after 14 holes.”
The president also shared a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp backing the legislation and arguing that additional evening daylight would allow Americans to play millions of additional rounds of golf each year.
Trump has framed the issue as more than a matter of convenience. He has argued that later sunsets could also reduce crime by allowing people to return home from work and other activities while it is still light outside.
“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,” Trump wrote.
“It’s depressing!” he added. “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!”
Cotton, however, has refused to budge.
“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.”
Cotton’s central argument is that permanent daylight saving time simply transfers the problem from the evening to the morning. During the darkest weeks of winter, sunrise would come considerably later in many parts of the country, meaning children could be waiting for school buses and commuters could be traveling to work before sunrise.
The United States has tried year-round daylight saving time before. Congress instituted it during the energy crisis in the 1970s, but public support quickly deteriorated as Americans experienced dark winter mornings, and the experiment was cut short.
Trump responded to Cotton’s argument by accusing him of getting the issue exactly backward.
“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 wrote.
The president then turned up the political pressure, arguing that Republicans should seize what he sees as an easy bipartisan legislative victory.
“Give the Republican Party a Senatorial WIN, for a change!” Trump wrote. “TAKE THE WIN TOM, JUST TAKE THE WIN! YOU NEED IT, AND SO DOES OUR BELOVED REPUBLICAN PARTY!”
Cotton is seeking reelection in Arkansas this November, although his race is not considered competitive. Trump carried Arkansas with more than 64% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election.
Cotton is also not the only Republican senator skeptical of the legislation. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana has called the Sunshine Protection Act “dead as disco” and expressed doubt that Senate Majority Leader John Thune will bring it to the floor.
The dispute comes just weeks before Americans are scheduled to change their clocks again. On Nov. 1, most of the country is due to “fall back” one hour and return to standard time for the winter. The Sunshine Protection Act would eventually eliminate that ritual by keeping most of the country on daylight saving time year-round.
Polling has shown widespread dissatisfaction with the current system, although Americans remain divided over what should replace it. A 2025 AP-NORC poll found that only 12% of U.S. adults favored continuing to change the clocks twice a year, while 47% opposed the practice and 40% were neutral.
Trump’s decision to publicize Cotton’s number also recalled a similar episode during his first presidential campaign. In 2015, after then-Sen. Lindsey Graham criticized him, Trump publicly read Graham’s cellphone number during a campaign appearance and encouraged people to call him.
Now, more than a decade later, Trump has revived the tactic against another Republican senator — this time over what might ordinarily seem like one of Washington’s least dramatic policy disputes: what time Americans should see when they look at the clock.
{Matzav.com}
