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 appears to be the personal cellphone number of Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The sun protection law passed the House in July, but it faces obstacles in the Senate, where some Republicans strongly oppose it. Supporters, including the White House, argue the change would provide more daylight during times when Americans are most active. Critics said permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more dangerous winter mornings, when children wait for school buses and parents commute to work in the dark.
It was a remarkable escalation by Trump of a long-standing fixation shared by both men — Trump supporting permanent daylight saving time, and Cotton vehemently opposing it — at a time just weeks before the midterms when Republicans would prefer the president focus on discussions about daylight saving time. affordability issues and the party’s achievements. Cotton is also running for re-election in November, although that race is not expected to be competitive.
Trump calls daylight saving time ‘depressing’
Daylight saving time is the 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 is signed into law.
“For some reason, Tom stops the bill, and in the Senate it’s very easy to do, it only takes one!” Trump wrote on social media, emphasizing that passing the bill would give professional golfers more time on the greens. “So everyone in Arkansas, a state that I love, and which has won 3 times, the last time by 34 points, tell Tom to do it! 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 voice mail was full.
Cotton, a member of the Republican leadership, reiterated his opposition to permanent daylight saving time in a social media post Saturday afternoon. He is not the only Republican senator to oppose this policy, although he is among the most vocal opponents.
“No one likes to change the clock, including me, but Congress has already passed permanent daylight saving time several times and repealed it each time when Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton wrote. “Arkansans don’t want their children going to school in total darkness, and I will always put Arkansas first.”
Trump, who is spending the day at his northern Virginia golf club before heading to Ohio later Saturday, immediately hit back.
“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, their farms, their workplaces and everywhere else, twice a year, changing their clocks and often forgetting to do it,” Trump said, adding that “that’s really putting Arkansas FIRST.”
As his motorcade returned to the White House, Trump added that “a table full of very distinguished people just told me that they HATE, immediately after a mandatory time change, to go home at night — and it’s DARK.”
“It’s depressing!” Trump continued. “One of the men said: ‘I hate going home in the dark.’ It’s also, in the Crime Ridden Blue States, much more dangerous to walk home in the dark!
A 2025 survey of Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Research Center 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 daylight saving time system, which requires residents 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 during wartime in 1942. The Senate pass There was a bill four years ago to make DST permanent, but it stalled in the House.
This is not the first time Trump has disclosed personal information about a senator.
While vying for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called Trump “unfit for office” after Trump disparaged the military service of Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Trump then released Graham’s personal cell phone number. This resulted in a viral video in which the senator spectacularly destroyed a series of flip phones.
Graham later became a close ally of Trump. In contrast, although they share many of the same policy positions, Trump and Cotton are not known to be close.
Cotton, one of the Republican Party’s top national security spokesmen, has argued for a more hawkish approach to Iran, especially as Trump considers suspending military strikes amid the seven-month war. During Trump’s first term, Cotton criticized the president’s attempts to overhaul the nation’s sentencing laws, calling the proposal a “jailbreak.”
Earlier this year, Cotton had temporarily defied Trump’s attempts to block the confirmation process of its own nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton. The president had wanted to ensure that his acting pick for the intelligence post, Bill Pulte, would be able to serve in the role at least briefly when the previous director, Tulsi Gabbard, left office.
But the nomination of Pulte, who had no known national security credentials, drew bipartisan condemnation from the Capitol and Cotton had tried to speed up Clayton’s confirmation process, which could have prevented Pulte from being named acting director.
But Trump ultimately ordered Clayton not to appear before Cotton’s committee for his confirmation hearing, and Pulte served in the role for several weeks this summer. Clayton was ultimately confirmed by the Senate in late July.
___
Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.
Gn usa
