Donald Trump releases Tom Cotton number to force daylight saving vote
President Donald Trump escalated his campaign to establish permanent daylight saving time across the United States by publicly posting what appeared to be the personal telephone number of Republican Senator Tom Cotton. The confrontational tactic seeks to break an internal party impasse stalling the Sunshine Protection Act on Capitol Hill, where procedural hurdles and conservative pushback have prevented the measure from reaching the Senate floor for a decisive vote.
The public disclosure came on Saturday, October 3, 2026, directly preceding a scheduled political gathering in Ohio. Using his Truth Social account, Donald Trump appealed straight to voters in Arkansas to demand an immediate reversal from their senior lawmaker. “For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one! (…) 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 declared in the online statement, explicitly instructing his followers to call the senator directly on his mobile line.
Tom Cotton defends winter school commutes and defies presidential call
Tom Cotton, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pushed back against the White House pressure campaign within hours. The Arkansas lawmaker reaffirmed his steadfast opposition to year-round daylight saving time, highlighting the severe safety risks that prolonged morning darkness would impose on young students commuting to school during winter months.
“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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Tom Cotton stated publicly. He emphasized his local obligations, asserting that “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first”.
Donald Trump countered those remarks shortly afterward, claiming that keeping evening light would deliver far greater benefits to daily productivity and family life than maintaining the winter standard schedule. “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 through houses, farms, workplaces, and everywhere else twice a year changing clocks and often forgetting to do so,” Trump wrote in response. Calls placed to the publicized telephone number resulted in automated notifications stating the customer was unavailable or directed callers to a full voicemail box. Congressional staff has not confirmed whether the line belongs to a private handset or a government-issued mobile device.
Learn more: Donald Trump suggested selling weapons to China, ambassador says
Bipartisan coalition cleared Sunshine Protection Act through House chamber
The legislative initiative to abolish the twice-yearly time shift previously cleared its first major hurdle with broad, cross-party backing. On July 14, 2026, the House of Representatives approved the Sunshine Protection Act in a decisive 308 to 117 roll call. Despite that strong momentum, federal enactment requires the concurrence of all 100 members of the Senate or a successful filibuster-proof majority, leaving individual lawmakers with substantial procedural latitude to stall legislation that lacks absolute consensus.
Opposition to the proposed mandate extends beyond Tom Cotton to other upper-chamber conservatives. Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota voiced parallel reservations, noting that residents in northern latitudes would endure darkness until nearly 9:30 a.m. in peak winter weeks under continuous daylight saving time. To address regional discrepancies, bill sponsors inserted an opt-out mechanism allowing individual state legislatures to enact local statutes preserving year-round standard time before the federal statute takes effect.
Chronology of daylight saving legislation in the United States Congress
Legislative efforts to eliminate biannual clock adjustments have generated intense parliamentary friction over several decades, marked by repeated rollbacks and shifting public consensus:
- December 15, 1973: Congress enacts emergency legislation implementing permanent daylight saving time across the nation to curb domestic energy consumption during the international oil embargo.
- 1974: Federal lawmakers abruptly repeal the year-round measure following widespread public outrage and an uptick in fatal traffic collisions involving schoolchildren walking in pre-dawn darkness.
- 2022: The Senate approves an earlier iteration of the Sunshine Protection Act by unanimous consent, but the proposal expires without consideration in the House of Representatives.
- July 14, 2026: The House passes the revived legislation under a 308-117 vote, transferring the policy debate back to the Senate chamber.
National polling reflects persistent split over seasonal clock adjustments
Public opinion surveys show widespread frustration with the inconvenience of shifting clocks, even as consensus dissolves over which permanent standard should prevail. A comprehensive nationwide study conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research documented clear divisions across the American electorate:
- 47% of adult respondents express opposition to biannual clock changes and favor locking the nation into a single permanent time system.
- 40% of the surveyed population reports neutral sentiment toward the current arrangement of moving clocks forward in spring and backward in autumn.
- 12% of participants explicitly support continuing the seasonal alternating schedule currently established by federal law.
Federal statutory framework governs state authority over time zones
Unless the Senate acts to pass the bill before the fall deadline, American residents living in standard jurisdictions will turn their clocks back one hour as scheduled. Under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, state governments possess legal authority to exempt themselves from daylight saving time to observe permanent standard time, but they remain strictly prohibited from adopting permanent daylight saving time without an explicit statutory mandate from Congress.
Several domestic jurisdictions already operate outside the biannual cycle. The state of Hawaii, the vast majority of Arizona, and the overseas territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands observe standard time year-round, bypassing the seasonal shifts enforced across the rest of the country.
