Trump posts Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number over dispute about daylight saving time bill

President Donald Trump posted on social media a cellphone number he claimed belonged to Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton in a Saturday tirade against the Arkansas lawmaker for opposing a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent.

The Sunshine Protection Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in July with bipartisan support but has met bipartisan opposition in the Senate. Trump has been urging Republican senators for months to support the bill.

“For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill, and in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one!” Trump wrote on TruthSocial, the social media platform he started after being banned from X, formerly Twitter.

Cotton’s policy stances and voting record typically align with Trump’s, but he reiterated his opposition to the bill in a Saturday Facebook post. 

Trump urges US Senate to pass bill making daylight saving time permanent

He wrote that  “no one likes changing the clock,” himself included, but noted that Congress has approved permanent daylight saving time more than once only to repeal it due to “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,” Cotton wrote.

He did not address Trump’s apparent revelation of his personal phone number to the public. An attempt to call the number Monday revealed that the voicemail box was full.

Arkansas lawmakers have introduced bills to make daylight saving time permanent in the past four legislative sessions, but none have passed the chamber in which they were introduced.

Cotton is running for a third term and faces Democrat Hallie Shoffner and Libertarian Jeff Wadlin in November. In a Saturday video on Facebook, Shoffner said she supports making daylight saving time permanent but considers it less important than making gasoline and groceries more affordable for Arkansans.

“Families are struggling, and changing the clocks isn’t going to change that,” Shoffner said.

Cotton’s stance was defended by colleagues from both parties. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona wrote on X that a better approach would be “permanent standard time,” with more light in the morning and less light in the evening.

“Senator Cotton is right,” Kelly wrote. “Permanent Daylight Savings has been tried and Americans didn’t like it.”

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana criticized Trump for giving out Cotton’s number and called Cotton a “rockstar senator.”

“I don’t think [Trump] should have given out Tom’s cell phone number,” Kennedy said on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “I don’t think that’s going to help convince Tom.”