Sen. Tom Cotton is standing by his block on permanent daylight saving time after President Trump shared his cell number and urged callers to push the Sunshine Protection Act, saying Arkansas kids should not start school in the dark.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) answered a public push from President Donald Trump over a bill that would lock the country onto daylight saving time year-round. Cotton said he is putting Arkansas first and will not back a change that leaves children walking to school before sunrise in winter.

Breitbart News reported the exchange after Trump criticized Cotton for holding up the measure in the Senate and posted Cotton’s cell phone number so supporters could call him. The U.S. House had already passed The Sunshine Protection Act on a 308-117 vote in July.

Trump framed the fight as simple: more evening light and an end to the twice-a-year clock change. Cotton answered with history and local reality. Congress had tried permanent daylight saving time before, he said, and repealed it once winter mornings turned absurdly late.

That clash now sits inside a broader stretch of Senate races to confirm Trump nominees and other high-stakes calendar fights, where one senator’s hold can slow a bill for months.

Cotton says winter sunrises, not clocks, decide the vote

Cotton posted on X that no one enjoys resetting clocks, including him. He still refuses permanent daylight saving time.

He wrote that past experiments failed for a concrete reason Americans felt every winter morning.

Sen. Tom Cotton stated:

"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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,"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 tied the vote to school mornings in his state.

Cotton 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 of his case. Late winter sunrises under permanent daylight saving time would push sunrise deeper into the morning schedule. Parents and school districts would absorb the risk, not the people who create the statute in Washington.

Trump posts Cotton’s number and demands Senate action

Trump answered on Truth Social. He said real loyalty to Arkansas means more daylight and fewer clock changes on farms, in houses, and at work.

President 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 followed with a political jab about his own record in the state and then turned to the bill’s path.

Trump said the House approved The Sunshine Protection Act “long ago” by that bipartisan 308-117 margin, and that the measure “has been held up in the Senate, a place where things go to die, by Tom Cotton, for months!”

In a separate Truth Social post, Trump shared Cotton’s cell phone number and told people to call the senator and urge support for the act. The pressure was direct, public, and aimed at one Republican roadblock.

Republican senators have spent recent months on other Trump priorities as well, including fights where Sen. Banks demands Trump immigration policies harden into lasting statute. Cotton’s daylight-saving hold shows the same chamber can stall even a popular-sounding idea when a member puts state interests first.

Past repeals and rival explanations

Both men reached for history. Cotton said permanent daylight saving time has been enacted multiple times and repealed each time after late winter sunrises hit. Trump offered a different account of why earlier efforts ended.

Trump argued older members of Congress used the issue as a bargaining chip.

He wrote:

"The reason that it was terminated in the past was that certain Congressmen and Senators, from long ago, used it as a ‘negotiating chip’ for far more important Legislation, And they got plenty!"

He added that “Everybody loved it, but it was given up in order to get bigger, better, and more consequential ‘things.'”

Neither post supplied statute numbers or year-by-year legislative citations. The public record in this exchange is the House tally, the bill’s short title, Cotton’s winter-sunrise warning, and Trump’s call for passage plus the phone-number post.

Senate process fights have looked similar on nominations, where panels have moved names only after pointed hearings, including the path that saw a Senate panel advance Trump’s surgeon general nominee following extended questioning. Holds and delays are how the chamber works when one member digs in.

Arkansas mornings versus national convenience

Cotton’s argument is local and blunt. Dark school commutes in Arkansas outweigh the convenience of permanent evening light and the end of spring-forward, fall-back. He repeated the line that Arkansans do not want children heading to class in the pitch dark.

Trump’s argument is national convenience plus political muscle. He cited the lopsided House vote, his own Arkansas wins “three times, and by almost 40 points,” and the claim that Cotton has parked the bill for months.

The Sunshine Protection Act still needs the Senate. Until Cotton or other skeptics move, the House’s 308-117 vote remains unfinished business. Voters who hate clock changes want a clean national rule. Parents who remember black-dark bus stops want the winter sunrise left alone.

Other Capitol storylines keep the partisan edge sharp, from confirmation drama around figures such as Jay Clayton before a Senate panel to opposition research plans that surface whenever control of Congress is in play. This daylight-saving fight is narrower: one senator, one state, one clock.

Cotton has drawn the line at winter darkness for Arkansas schoolchildren. Trump has handed the country Cotton’s number and told them to dial. The Senate still has to choose which argument wins.