President Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s cellphone number in a social media post amid a push to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide.
“Republicans in the Senate have to get moving on what I call the ‘No More Changing of Clocks Act,’ officially known as The Sunshine Protection Act,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social early Friday morning.
In that post, he said the twice-annual American tradition of changing the clocks “costs our Country a fortune, is bad for Crime, stress on people, Sports, and just about everything else you can imagine.”
On Saturday, in a separate Truth Social post, Trump wrote of Cotton, an Arkansas Republican: “Everybody 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 is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one! It should pass overwhelmingly, in a Bipartisan fashion,” he added.
In Saturday’s post, the president also appeared to include the senator’s phone number, writing: “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 … and let him know.”
Trump posted about Cotton for a third time later Saturday, writing, “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.”
A spokesperson for Cotton’s office directed NBC News to a post on X from the senator on Saturday, where he wrote, “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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter.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.”
The senator has previously opposed establishing permanent daylight saving time, saying dark winter mornings negatively affect Americans’ health and well-being.
Cotton has pointed to the 1970s, when Congress did institute permanent daylight saving time but eventually reversed course after public opinion on it tanked.
“It’s said that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And that’s what would happen if Congress passes the so-called Sunshine Protection Act, once again ending Standard Time and imposing daylight savings time year-round,” Cotton said in a 2025 floor speech.
“If permanent daylight savings time becomes the law of the land, it will again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans,” he added. “By moving the clock back an hour in winter, permanent daylight savings time would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour, depriving Americans of morning sunshine that’s essential for our safety and well-being.”
The House passed the bill in July, with a bipartisan vote, sending it over to the Senate, which hasn’t yet taken up the measure.
In 2022, the Senate was the chamber to 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 Sens. 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.
Following his election 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 use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”
In his posts Friday and Saturday, Trump also highlighted support for the “Sunshine Protection Act” from Brian Rolapp, the CEO of the PGA Tour.
“Even the highly respected PGA Commissioner, Brian Rolapp, needs it for the completion of Golf Tournaments in the Winter, when they just plain run out of sunlight,” the president wrote on Friday.
