President Donald Trump on Saturday pressured Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to support a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, urging Americans to call what appeared to be the personal cellphone number of Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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.
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.
“For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one!" Trump wrote on social media, noting that passing the bill would give professional golfers more time on the greens. "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.
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.
This is not the first time Trump has released personal information about a senator. While competing for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina described Trump as “unfit for office” after Trump denigrated the military service of Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Trump then released Graham’s personal cellphone number. That prompted a viral video in which the senator dramatically destroyed a series of flip phones. Graham later became a close ally of Trump.
Cotton, a member of Republican leadership, reiterated his opposition to permanent daylight saving time in a social media post of his own. Saturday afternoon, though he is not the only Republican who opposes it.
“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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” he wrote. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
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 clocks twice a year, while 47% are opposed 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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AP writers Seung Min Kim in Dayton, Ohio, and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.
