Trump appears to release Senator Tom Cotton’s cell number in bid to make daylight saving time permanent

President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s cellphone number in a social media post on Saturday, part of a campaign to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent across the country.

“Republicans in the Senate must move forward on what I call the ‘Change the Clock Act,’ officially known as the Sunshine Protection Act,” the president wrote in an article on Truth Social early Friday morning.

In that article, he said the biannual American tradition of changing clocks “costs our country a fortune, is bad for crime, stress on people, sports and just about everything else you can imagine.”

In another Truth Social article on Saturday, Trump wrote of Cotton, an Arkansas Republican: “Everyone in Arkansas, Tom Cotton, a friend of mine, is holding up a very important bill. It’s called ‘The Sunshine Protection Act’ or ‘We Don’t Want to Change Our Clocks Twice a Year Act’.”

“For some reason, Tom stops the bill, and in the Senate it’s very easy to do, it just takes one! It should pass overwhelmingly, in a bipartisan way,” he added.

In Saturday’s message, the president also appeared to include the senator’s phone number, writing: “To the great people of Arkansas, please let your senator know that this would be a GREAT bipartisan VICTORY for the United States Senate and for America itself. Call Tom on his cell phone…and let him know.”

Trump posted about Cotton a third time later Saturday, writing, “If Tom Cotton prioritized Arkansas, he would give them an extra hour of daylight and, more importantly, they wouldn’t have to run around their homes, farms, workplaces, and everywhere else, twice a year, changing their clocks and often forgetting to do so.” »

A spokesperson for Cotton’s office directed NBC News to an article about the senator’s priority to Arkansas.”

The senator previously opposed establishing permanent daylight saving time, saying dark winter mornings negatively affect the health and well-being of Americans.

Cotton pointed to the 1970s, when Congress established permanent daylight saving time but ultimately reversed course after public opinion on it declined.

“It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And that is what would happen if Congress passed the so-called Sun Protection Act, once again ending standard time and mandating daylight saving time year-round,” Cotton said in a 2025 speech.

“If permanent daylight saving time becomes the law of the land, it will once again make winter a dark and dreary time for millions of Americans,” he added. “By moving the clock back an hour in winter, permanent daylight saving time would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour, depriving Americans of the early morning sunlight essential to our safety and well-being.”

The House passed the bill in July on a bipartisan vote and sent it to the Senate, which has yet to take up the measure.

In 2022, the Senate was the chamber that took the lead on the issue, passing an earlier version of the Sunshine Protection Act that would have made daylight saving time permanent.

The bill that year was co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators, including Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Ed Markey, D-Mass.

After being elected to a second term in 2024, Trump pledged to make eliminating the need to change clocks twice a year a key part of his policy agenda.

In December of that year, several weeks before his inauguration, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “the Republican Party will do its best to eliminate DST, which has a small but strong voting base, but should not do it! DST is inconvenient and very costly to our nation.”

In his messages Friday and Saturday, Trump also highlighted support for the “Sunshine Protection Act” from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp.

“Even the highly respected PGA Commissioner Brian Rolapp needs it to complete golf tournaments in the winter, when they simply lack sunlight,” the president wrote Friday.