Trump, Cotton tussle over daylight savings after cell phone number leak

Trump Escalates Clash With Cotton Over Permanent Daylight Saving Time

Provpnadvice.com – President Trump intensified his criticism of Sen. Tom Cotton on Saturday after the Arkansas Republican opposed legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent. The dispute sharpened after Trump shared Cotton’s cellphone number in a social-media post and urged Arkansas residents to contact him about the bill.

The disagreement centers on the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, which Trump has pressed Congress to approve. The proposal would end the twice-yearly clock changes by keeping daylight saving time in place throughout the year. The House approved the measure in July with broad bipartisan backing, but it has stalled in the Senate.

Trump argued that Cotton was preventing a measure he sees as both practical and popular. Cotton, who leads the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, responded with a statement defending his position without naming Trump or addressing the release of his number.

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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter.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 dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.

Competing Views of What Arkansas Needs

Cotton’s argument reflects a central concern in the long-running debate over time policy: permanent daylight saving time would shift more daylight into the evening but would also delay winter sunrises. For families, schools and early-morning workers, that could mean beginning the day before sunrise for a larger part of the year.

Trump took the opposite view, saying Cotton’s position did not serve the senator’s home state. In a later post, the president said that eliminating clock changes would spare people from having to reset clocks at home, at work and on farms twice a year.

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 then highlighted his electoral record in Arkansas while arguing that he understood the state’s preferences better than Cotton did.

That is really putting Arkansas FIRST, and I know, because, unlike Tom, I won that Great State, three times, and by almost 40 points!

The exchange illustrates the political challenge behind a proposal that initially appears straightforward. Many Americans dislike moving clocks forward and back each year, particularly because of disrupted routines, sleep schedules and missed appointments. But there is less agreement about whether the nation should retain daylight saving time year-round or instead adopt permanent standard time.

Trump Makes Crime and Evening Light Part of His Case

Trump has promoted the Sunshine Protection Act as a measure that could have effects beyond convenience. He said permanent daylight saving time would help reduce crime nationally, asserting that people committing crimes prefer darkness.

CRIMINALS DON’T LIKE WORKING IN THE LIGHT.

His Saturday posts also focused on the experience of leaving work after sunset. Trump said a group of prominent people told him they disliked returning home in darkness after the seasonal clock change. He linked that concern to personal safety, particularly in what he described as crime-ridden Democratic-led states.

It’s depressing! 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!

Supporters of permanent daylight saving time often emphasize longer-feeling evenings for recreation, shopping, commuting and outdoor activity. Critics, including Cotton, place greater weight on winter mornings, when sunrise could occur considerably later in some parts of the country. The clash between those priorities has repeatedly complicated efforts to establish one time standard nationwide.

Cellphone Post Raises Stakes of Senate Dispute

Trump’s first message directed at Cotton asked the senator’s constituents to push him to support the proposal. The president framed the bill as an opportunity for a bipartisan Senate victory and then included 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. Call Tom on his cellphone. Let him know.

Following Cotton’s statement, Trump returned to the issue in two additional posts Saturday afternoon. In one, he suggested the senator’s unwillingness to change course was driven by ego rather than the interests of Arkansas residents.

The episode turned a policy disagreement over clock changes into a public confrontation between a president and a Republican senator from a strongly conservative state. It also underscored that support for ending seasonal time changes does not necessarily settle the larger question of which clock system should remain in force.

As of 4 p.m. Saturday, Cotton had not publicly answered Trump’s second and third posts. The Arkansas senator and the White House were both contacted for comment.