President Donald Trump has found his latest political opponents: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, the nation’s clocks and, apparently, darkness itself.
Trump unleashed a series of Truth Social posts Saturday demanding that Cotton stop opposing legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent, arguing Americans deserve more “SUN” in the afternoon.
“If Tom Cotton were putting Arkansas first, he would give them an extra hour of daylight,” Trump wrote.
The Sunshine Protection Act, originally co-sponsored in 2023 by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and former Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), would eliminate the twice-yearly clock change by making daylight saving time permanent. It would not actually increase the amount of daylight, but shift an hour of it from the morning to the evening by the clock.
Trump escalated the dispute by posting what he said was Cotton’s cellphone number and urging Arkansans to call him. Cotton has remained opposed, arguing that permanent daylight saving time would force children to travel to school before sunrise during winter.
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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter.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…
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) October 3, 2026
Other Senate Republicans, including Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, have also opposed the measure.
Trump offered several arguments for permanent daylight saving time, including that “CRIMINALS DON’T LIKE WORKING IN THE LIGHT” and that changing clocks in church steeples and municipal buildings is difficult.
He also posted an Oct. 1 letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp supporting permanent daylight saving time. Rolapp cited an industry estimate that additional evening daylight could produce 23 million more rounds of golf and $1 billion in annual revenue.
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Trump claimed a previous U.S. experiment with permanent daylight saving time ended because lawmakers used it as a “negotiating chip” for other legislation.
That’s not what happened.
Congress enacted year-round daylight saving time during the 1970s energy crisis, but public support plummeted amid dark winter mornings and concerns about children traveling to school before sunrise. Congress reversed course before the experiment was scheduled to end.
By Saturday afternoon, Trump had discovered another problem with darkness.
“A table full of very distinguished people just told me that they HATE, immediately after a mandatory time change, going home at night – and it’s DARK,” Trump wrote. “It’s depressing!”
As of publication, the clocks are still scheduled to fall back for most of the country on Nov. 1.
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