Sen. Tom Cotton refused to back permanent Daylight Saving Time after President Trump blasted him and shared his cell phone number, citing dark winter mornings for Arkansas kids.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., drew a hard line this week against making Daylight Saving Time permanent, even after President Trump publicly pressed him and posted his personal cell number for Arkansas voters to call.
Just the News reported that Cotton answered Trump’s criticism by saying he will not support locking the clocks on Daylight Saving Time year-round.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday and accused Cotton of holding up the measure. Cotton answered with a plain statement grounded in past failures and the interests of his own state.
Cotton did not dodge the fight. He wrote that no one enjoys the twice-a-year clock change, including him. But he pointed to history.
"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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter.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,"
That is the core of his case. Permanent Daylight Saving Time has been tried. Congress walked it back when winter sunrises arrived too late and mornings stayed dark too long for families and schoolchildren.
Cotton framed the choice as straightforward: Arkansas parents do not want kids waiting for buses or walking to school before sunrise. He said he will put that concern ahead of the national push.
Breitbart reported that Trump went further than a policy critique. He posted Cotton’s cellphone number and urged Arkansas residents to pressure the senator into supporting the Sunshine Protection Act.
Trump cast Cotton as the holdup. “Everybody in Arkansas, Tom Cotton, a friend of mine, is holding up a very important Bill,” Trump said. “It’s called, ‘The Sunshine Protection Act’ or, ‘We Don’t Want to Change Our Clocks Twice a Year Act.’”
He added a direct appeal: “So, everyone in Arkansas, a State I love, and won 3 times, the last by by 34 points, tell Tom to, GET IT DONE!”
The bill already cleared the House. Lawmakers there passed it 308-117 in July with bipartisan support. The Senate version has not moved the same way.
Fox News reported that Trump said Cotton is stopping the bill and noted how easy that is in the Senate. “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,” Trump wrote.
That is the procedural reality. A single senator can block unanimous consent and slow a measure that looks popular on paper. Cotton has used that leverage. He has not hidden his reason.
The dispute is not abstract. Permanent Daylight Saving Time shifts more daylight to evenings and leaves winter mornings darker. Cotton says that trade-off failed before and would fail Arkansas families again.
Trump wants the twice-a-year switch ended and has said he would work to see the act signed into law. Cotton wants the dark-morning problem kept front and center. Both men are arguing from results they care about. One is national clock uniformity. The other is school-age kids in Arkansas standing in the dark.
Cotton’s warning rests on lived experience, not theory. Congress has locked in permanent Daylight Saving Time more than once. Each time, late winter sunrises brought enough public backlash that lawmakers reversed course.
That record matters. Voters may hate the spring-forward and fall-back routine until they live through a stretch of pitch-black January mornings. Cotton is betting his state still remembers that lesson.
The Sunshine Protection Act would make Daylight Saving Time the year-round standard. Supporters sell it as convenience and evening light. Opponents, Cotton included, sell the morning safety and school schedule problem that killed earlier versions.
House passage by a wide margin shows the idea has strength in one chamber. Senate resistance shows it still collides with regional and practical objections. Cotton has become the face of that resistance after Trump named him and handed out his number.
Cotton’s reply stayed local and concrete. He did not argue process trivia. He argued about children going to school before the sun is up, and about a senator’s duty to put his state first when Washington wants a clean national fix.
When a president posts a senator’s phone number and a senator answers with school mornings in the dark, voters get a clear choice about whose judgment they trust on the clock.
