President Donald Trump on Saturday urged Americans to call what appeared to be the personal cellphone number of Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, escalating a dispute over a bill to make daylight saving time permanent. Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, has opposed the measure and is one of several Republicans standing in its way.
In a social media post, Trump wrote that "for some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill" and told people in Arkansas to "tell Tom to, GET IT DONE!" He added: "Call Tom on his cellphone," followed by a number with an Arkansas area code. The Associated Press and Reuters both called the number; no one answered, and the voicemail box was full or did not identify itself as Cotton's. The Guardian received a message saying the customer was unavailable. The sources describe the number only as apparently or supposedly Cotton's.
The Sunshine Protection Act passed the House of Representatives in July but faces obstacles in the Senate. Daylight saving time is the period between spring and fall when most US clocks are set an hour ahead of standard time. Under the bill, states could opt out if their legislatures act beforehand. Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy this week called the bill "dead as disco" and said he doubted Senate Majority Leader John Thune would bring it to a vote.
Cotton restated his position on Saturday, writing that Congress has enacted permanent daylight saving time several times and repealed it each time "once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter." He said Arkansans do not want children going to school in the dark. Trump replied that if Cotton were putting Arkansas first, he would give the state an extra hour of daylight and spare people from changing clocks twice a year. Trump has also argued that dark evenings are depressing and more dangerous in Democratic-led states. Supporters cited by the president include golfers, tennis players, hunters and farmers; he shared a letter from the PGA Tour's chief executive backing the change.
The move echoes an episode in 2015, when Trump, then a presidential candidate, read out the personal number of Senator Lindsey Graham after a clash over Trump's remarks about the military service of Senator John McCain. Graham responded with a viral video of himself destroying flip phones and later became a close Trump ally. Trump and Cotton, by contrast, are not known to be close, despite sharing many policy positions. They have clashed before, including over sentencing reform and a recent intelligence-chief nomination.
The row comes weeks before the midterm elections, when many Republicans would prefer the president to stress affordability and the party's achievements. Cotton is up for re-election, but his race is not seen as competitive: Trump won more than 64 per cent of Arkansas's vote in 2024. An AP-NORC poll from 2025 found only 12 per cent of US adults favour the current twice-yearly clock changes, while 47 per cent oppose them and 40 per cent are neutral; if forced to choose, most prefer keeping the extra evening daylight. Clocks are due to go back on November 1.