Trump posts Cotton’s cellphone number in clash over permanent daylight saving bill

President Trump shared Sen. Tom Cotton’s cellphone number and urged Arkansas voters to call him after the senator stood in the way of permanent daylight saving time.

The Hill reported that President Trump posted Sen. Tom Cotton’s cellphone number on Truth Social on Saturday and told supporters to dial the Arkansas Republican about a daylight saving time bill stuck in the Senate.

Trump has repeatedly pressed Congress to pass the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, which would make daylight saving time the permanent standard. The House already cleared the measure in July with broad bipartisan support. Trump blamed Cotton for holding it up in the upper chamber.

Cotton chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. He did not fold. Later Saturday he put out a short statement defending his position and never named the president or the leaked number.

Cotton cites dark winter mornings and past repeals

Cotton framed the fight as practical, not personal. He said Congress has tried permanent daylight saving time before and walked it back once people lived through the results.

In a statement shared on social media, Cotton 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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,”

He added:

“Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”

That is the core policy split. Trump wants year-round later daylight and an end to the twice-a-year scramble. Cotton warns that permanent daylight saving time leaves winter mornings too dark for schoolchildren and points to earlier national experiments that got repealed.

Trump has shown before that he will manage strained political relationships in public when an ally drifts from his priorities, including recent warnings to a House Republican about reelection odds.

Trump answers: extra daylight is putting Arkansas first

Trump did not leave Cotton’s statement unanswered. On Truth Social Saturday afternoon, he rejected the idea that blocking the bill protects Arkansas.

Trump wrote:

“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.”

He continued:

“That is really putting Arkansas FIRST, and I know, because, unlike Tom, I won that Great State, three times, and by almost 40 points!”

The first post targeting Cotton was blunt. Trump told “the Great People of Arkansas” the bill would be a “GREAT Bipartisan WIN” for the Senate and the country, then told them to “Call Tom on his cellphone” and “Let him know.”

As of 4 p.m. Saturday, Cotton had not answered Trump’s second or third Truth Social posts. The Hill sought comment from Cotton and the White House.

Public pressure through direct channels is familiar terrain for Trump, who has also used high-profile travel and meetings to reset political partnerships, including a recent visit to Gracie Mansion.

Crime, darkness, and the twice-a-year clock change

Trump tied the bill to safety as well as convenience. He said permanent daylight saving time would lower the national crime rate because “CRIMINALS DON’T LIKE WORKING IN THE LIGHT.”

In another Saturday post, he said “a table full of very distinguished people” told him “they HATE” going home at night in the dark after the time change. He called the early darkness depressing and quoted one man saying, “I just hate going home in darkness.” Trump also said walking home after dark is “a lot more dangerous” in what he called “Crime Ridden Blue States.”

He described Cotton’s resistance as “ego”-driven. Cotton’s statement never answered that charge. It stuck to winter sunrises, school mornings, and putting Arkansas first.

Media fights and loyalty tests have marked other stretches of Trump’s second term as well, from White House decisions on press access to public reactions when familiar television voices exit the stage.

House already moved; Senate is the bottleneck

The legislative timeline is straightforward on the facts available. The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 related legislation in July with broad bipartisan support. Trump has kept pushing the Senate to finish the job. He has named Cotton as the obstacle holding the bill in the upper chamber.

What remains unclear from the Saturday exchange is Cotton’s exact procedural posture, whether a hold, a committee block, or simple opposition on the floor. The reporting does not supply a Senate vote tally or a formal calendar status beyond Trump’s charge that Cotton is the reason the bill is stuck.

Cotton’s historical point still stands on the record he offered: prior permanent daylight saving experiments were enacted and later repealed after Americans lived with late winter sunrises. That history is why he says he will not trade dark school mornings for year-round evening light.

Trump’s counter is simpler and more populist. Stop making families, farms, and workplaces change clocks twice a year. Give people an extra hour of daylight. Let Arkansas callers deliver the message themselves.

He has not been shy about intervening when he believes a file, a nomination, or a personal case is stalled for the wrong reasons, including clemency decisions that cut through long federal sentences.

Saturday’s posts turned a scheduling dispute into a direct line from the president to one senator’s phone. Supporters got a number and a request. Cotton got a public stress test of whether “Arkansas first” means dark winter mornings or year-round evening light.

Most Americans never asked for the ritual of moving clocks twice a year, and a House bill with bipartisan backing should not die quietly in the Senate over one member’s veto.