WASHINGTON — President Trump doxed Senate “friend’’ Tom Cotton on Saturday, blasting out the GOPer’s personal cellphone number online in furious retaliation for stopping a bill to make daylight savings time permanent
While hailing Cotton as “a friend,” Trump laced into the Arkansas senator for being the main holdout on the proposed Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight savings time permanent for the country.
“For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one! It should pass overwhelmingly, in a Bipartisan fashion,” the president vented on Truth Social. “So, everyone in Arkansas, a State I love, and won 3 times, the last by 34 points, tell Tom to, GET IT DONE!
“Call Tom on his cellphone at … and let him know.”
Trump famously released late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) personal cellphone in 2015 during their heated GOP presidential primary fight.
The Sunshine Protection Act cleared the House overwhelmingly in July, 308-117, but has been held up in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to break a filibuster.
Cotton, who is up for reelection Nov. 3, was unmoved by the president’s broadside.
“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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” the Arkansan countered on X.
“Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
The US attempted year-round permanent daylight saving time in the 1970s but ultimately reverted to the clock-switch.
Efforts to make daylight savings permanent have gained traction in recent years.
But Cotton has argued that starting the day with darkness in the winter months has negative implications for children waiting for their school buses in the morning.
Trump had been ramping up pressure on Cotton over daylight savings, singling him out in a rant Friday before he released his number Saturday.
“Nobody wants to spend their precious time running all over the place, turning Clocks back twice a year and, having sunshine in the afternoon is better than early in the morning!” Trump later added.
“It’s very expensive for our Nation where you have high and dangerous steeples to reach, like on churches and municipal buildings. Almost everybody wants ‘The Sunshine Protection Act’ to pass, except for Tom Cotton.”
