President Donald Trump on Saturday urged the Senate to immediately pass legislation to enact year-round daylight saving time, giving out the personal cellphone number of the bill’s chief critic — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) — in a dramatic attempt to ramp up pressure.
“Everyone in Arkansas, a State I love, and won 3 times, the last by by 34 points, tell Tom to, GET IT DONE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, sharing Cotton’s number.
Trump also posted a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp calling for passage of the Sunshine Protection Act, saying that shifting sunset later in the day would be a boon for golfers. The president followed up with subsequent posts further criticizing Cotton and saying that he discussed the topic during his Saturday afternoon visit to Trump National Golf Club.
“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, contending that the legislation would improve public safety.
Trump, an avid golfer, has spent nearly two years campaigning to end the nation’s clock changes, and the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act in July. But the bill has been stalled in the Senate, with no obvious path toward passage, and senators are not expected to return to Washington until after November’s midterm elections.
Cotton, often a staunch Trump supporter, vowed last year that he would “always oppose” efforts for year-round daylight saving time. He reiterated his opposition Saturday.
“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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton wrote on X. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter. Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch…
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) October 3, 2026
Asked about Trump’s criticism, Cotton’s office referred to the senator’s post.
A phone call to the number shared by Trump went straight to voicemail, with a recorded message saying that the mailbox was full. The number has been previously linked to Cotton in a publicly accessible database of phone records.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the long-standing practice of shifting the clocks forward one hour in the spring and shifting them back one hour in the fall, calling it unnecessary and frustrating. But he said last year that he had discovered — like so many politicians before him — that making a change to daylight saving time was a “50-50 issue” with unclear political prospects.
“This should be the easiest one of all … but a lot of people like it one way, a lot of people like it the other way, it’s very even,” the president said in March 2025.
Trump also advanced a novel theory Saturday: that shifting the clocks would deter crime.
“It’s even been proven to be better in stopping CRIME, something of which I have done an Historic job because, CRIMINALS DON’T LIKE WORKING IN THE LIGHT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Most Americans do want to end the nation’s clock changes — but cannot agree on what should replace them.
Just 12 percent of Americans favored the current system as of October 2025, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll. But 47 percent opposed it, and the remainder said they were neither opposed or in favor.
But there’s little consensus on what to adopt instead. Fifty-six percent of Americans said they would prefer year-round daylight saving time, with more light in the evening and less in the morning, while 42 percent wanted year-round standard time, with more light in the morning and less at night, the AP-NORC poll found.
The Sunshine Protection Act would stop the annual practice of “springing forward” and “falling back” by placing most of the country permanently on daylight saving time, with an exemption for the few places that are on year-round standard time and already don’t change their clocks.
The legislation has been championed in both the House and Senate by bipartisan members disproportionately from Southern and coastal states, who argue it would allow Americans to enjoy more outdoor afternoon and evening activities during the winter. It also has drawn support from golf course operators, who say the extra hour of daylight in the evenings would notably boost their business.
“This bipartisan legislation represents a popular, common-sense reform and would benefit Americans by protecting precious daylight during the evening, when people are most likely to be awake and active,” according to a White House statement on the House version of the bill.
The legislation would allow states to opt out of permanent daylight saving time and remain on year-round standard time if they make the change before the legislation takes effect.
Medical groups and lawmakers who represent Midwestern states have criticized the Sunshine Protection Act, saying that year-round daylight would be unhealthy and lead to inappropriately late sunrises in many parts of the country. In cities such as Detroit and Indianapolis, the sun would rise after 9 a.m. in the middle of the winter.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and other medical groups have said that year-round daylight saving time does not align with humans’ natural circadian rhythms and that year-round standard time would be preferable.
Cotton and other lawmakers have also warned that a similar year-round daylight saving time plan in the 1970s swiftly backfired.
Trump has repeatedly shared personal information about other politicians in fits of pique, such as giving out Sen. Lindsey Graham’s cellphone number as the two men competed for the 2016 Republican nomination for president.
At Graham’s funeral this year, Trump admitted that he was wrong to share the senator’s number.
“I did something that I shouldn’t have done. I shared his personal cellphone number with … millions of people,” Trump said. “But it was Lindsey who had the last laugh because while I blew up his phone, all for one day, we became great friends and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years.”
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