Mr. Trump publicly announced Tom Cotton’s phone number after the Republican congressman opposed the bill to end the requirement to change the time twice a year.
“Dear people of Arkansas, my friend Tom Cotton is delaying a very important bill. That is the Sunshine Protection Law, also known as ‘The law we don’t want to change the time twice a year,'” US President Donald Trump wrote on the social network Truth Social on October 4, referring to the Republican senator representing Arkansas.
“For some reason, Tom is blocking this bill. In the Senate, blocking is very easy, just one person disagreeing is enough. This law should have passed with an overwhelming vote,” he added.
US President Donald Trump spoke at a rally in Ohio on October 3. Image: AP
The US President publicly announced Mr. Cotton’s phone number, urging Arkansas people to call to pressure this senator.
“If Tom Cotton puts Arkansas first, he will give them an extra hour of daylight and, more importantly, they won’t have to run around their homes, farms, workplaces and other places twice a year to reset their clocks,” Mr. Trump wrote.
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives in July passed the Sunshine Protection Bill, which aims to apply “daylight saving time” year-round, ending the need for Americans to change time twice a year.
Daylight saving time, also known as Daylight Savings Time (DST), is a way of adjusting time according to the actual time it is daylight during the day, applied in the US and many European countries.
According to this convention, from mid-spring (late March) to early winter (late October, early November), when the days are longer, the clock will be adjusted one hour faster. In winter, the clock will be set back to normal.
The US is applying regulations to move clocks forward one hour in the spring, when day is longer than night, and back one hour in the fall. However, the US Senate has not yet passed this bill.
Mr. Trump said that the majority of Americans want more daylight in the afternoon, while Mr. Cotton argued that this change would leave early risers in darkness in the winter.
When the American reporter called the phone number that Mr. Trump provided to contact Mr. Cotton, the call went straight to voicemail.
Mr. Cotton did not directly respond to Mr. Trump’s statement, but expressed his opposition on social network X.
“No one likes the time change, including me, but Congress has many times passed regulations to apply DST year-round, then repealed it immediately after Americans witnessed the sun rising too late in the winter,” he wrote. “The people of Arkansas do not want their children to have to go to school in the dark, and I will always put the interests of Arkansas first.”
Senator Tom Cotton spoke in Washington on June 2. Image: AP
In 2025, Mr. Cotton opposed applying DST year-round because he believed that dark winter mornings would negatively affect the health and spirit of Americans.
He said the US Congress in 1974 applied DST year-round, but eventually had to reverse the decision after public opposition.
After being elected for a second term in 2024, Mr. Trump pledged to eliminate the twice-a-year time change, citing this regulation as “inconvenient and costly to America.”