Donald Trump escalated his campaign to change daylight saving time by pressuring fellow Republican Tom Cotton—and appearing to publish the Arkansas senator’s personal cellphone number.
The president spent much of Saturday promoting the Sunshine Protection Act, legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent.
The measure passed the House in July but has encountered resistance from Republicans in the Senate, including Cotton, one of its most outspoken opponents.
“For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one!” Trump wrote on social media. He added that the legislation would give professional golfers more time on the course.
“So, everyone in Arkansas, a State I love, and won 3 times, the last by by 34 points, tell Tom to, GET IT DONE! It will be appreciated by all,” Trump wrote.
Trump also posted a phone number with an Arkansas area code. When The Daily Mail called it, nobody answered and the voicemail inbox was full.
The president made several Truth Social posts backing the bill, including one that shared a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp in support of the proposal.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but 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. It’s depressing!” Trump wrote in one post.
Donald Trump escalated his dispute with fellow Republican Tom Cotton over proposed daylight saving time changes by posting what appeared to be the Arkansas senator’s personal cellphone number
The bill passed the House in July but has faced Republican opposition, including from Cotton, who strongly objects to it
Supporters, including the White House, say permanent daylight saving time would provide more daylight during the hours when Americans are most active.
Opponents argue that the policy would produce darker—and potentially more dangerous—winter mornings, leaving children waiting for school buses and parents commuting to work in the dark.
Trump’s intervention marked a striking escalation in a longstanding disagreement shared by both men. Trump supports making daylight saving time permanent, while Cotton has firmly rejected the idea.
The dispute comes only weeks before the midterm elections, when Republicans would rather see the president emphasize affordability issues and highlight the party’s accomplishments. Cotton is also seeking reelection this November, although his contest is not expected to be competitive.
Daylight saving time refers to the period between spring and fall when clocks across most of the United States are moved one hour ahead of standard time.
Not every state observes daylight saving time. Under the proposed legislation, states could opt out if their legislatures took action before the bill was enacted.
Cotton, who serves in Republican leadership, restated his opposition to permanent daylight saving time in a social media post Saturday afternoon.
He is not the only Republican senator against the policy, but he has been among its most vocal critics.
Trump and Cotton are on opposite sides of the debate over the Sunshine Protection Act
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“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.
‘Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I´ll always put Arkansas first.’
Trump, who is spending the day at his northern Virginia golf club before traveling to Ohio later Saturday, promptly fired back.
‘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 said, adding that ‘that is really putting Arkansas FIRST.’
A 2025 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that if forced to choose, most Americans would prefer to keep that extra hour of daylight in the evening.
Only 12 percent of US adults favor the current system of daylight saving time, which requires people in most states to change their clocks twice a year, while 47 percent oppose it and 40 percent are neutral.
Members of Congress have long been interested in the potential benefits and costs of daylight saving time since it was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1918.
The Senate passed a bill four years ago to make daylight saving time permanent, but it stalled in the House.
Proponents, including the White House, argue that the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active
It is not the first time Trump has resorted to publishing personal contact information to bolster his cause.
While competing for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, the late Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina described Trump as ‘unfit for office’ after Trump denigrated the military service of Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Trump then released Graham’s personal cellphone number. That prompted a viral video in which the senator dramatically 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 most prominent national security voices, has advocated for a more hawkish approach on Iran, particularly as Trump entertains pauses in military strikes amid the seven-month war.
In Trump’s first term, Cotton was a critic of the president’s attempts at overhauling the nation’s sentencing laws, calling the proposal a ‘jailbreak.’
Earlier this year, Cotton had temporarily defied Trump’s attempts at stalling the confirmation process for his own nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton.
The president had wanted to ensure his interim pick for the intelligence job, Bill Pulte, would be able to serve in that role at least briefly when the former director, Tulsi Gabbard, left the job.
But the appointment of Pulte, who had no known national security credentials, drew bipartisan condemnation from Capitol Hill and Cotton had tried to expedite Clayton’s confirmation process, which could have prevented Pulte from being installed as acting director.
But Trump ultimately ordered Clayton to not appear before Cotton’s committee for his confirmation hearing, and Pulte served in the job for several weeks this summer. Clayton was eventually confirmed by the Senate in late July.