Source : Perth Now news
US President Donald Trump is getting personal in his ongoing push for daylight saving time to be made permanent – urging Americans to call a congressman opposed to the move.
The Sunshine Protection Act passed the House in July, but it faces roadblocks in the Senate where some Republicans are strongly opposed. Proponents, including the White House, argue that the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active. Detractors say permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings when children will be waiting for school buses and parents will be driving to work in darkness.
In a remarkable escalation, the president appeared to give out the mobile phone number for Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Daylight saving has been a fixation for both men, with Trump supporting making daylight saving time permanent, and Cotton vociferously opposed.
“It’s a lot of work for a lot of people, running around for two days, changing all the clocks in the house,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Saturday for a rally in Vandalia, Ohio. “It discombobulates everybody,” he said.
Trump said the time change back gives golfers less time on the greens and tennis players less time on the courts. He blamed Cotton for stopping the bill. “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 said on social media on Saturday morning, kicking off the fight.
Trump included a phone number with an Arkansas area code. The Associated Press called the number, but no one answered and the voicemail box was full.
Cotton, a member of Republican leadership, reiterated his opposition to permanent daylight saving time in a social media post of his own Saturday afternoon.
“Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton wrote.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.”
A 2025 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research shows that most Americans would prefer to keep that extra hour of daylight in the evening. Only 12 per cent favoured the current system of daylight saving time, which requires people in most states to change their clocks twice a year, while 47 per cent oppose it and 40 per cent are neutral.
This is not the first time Trump has released personal information about a senator
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 John McCain of Arizona. Trump then released Graham’s personal phone number. That prompted a viral video in which the senator dramatically destroyed a series of flip phones.
