President Donald Trump has turned a routine autumn ritual into a fresh fight with his own party's Senate, blasting senators for failing to make daylight saving time permanent just days before Americans are due to turn their clocks back. Speaking to supporters in Corinth, Mississippi, on Monday, Trump called the twice-yearly clock change "stupid", said "many many Americans are very disappointed" with the politicians stalling the bill, and joked that the ritual itself has made him late. With daylight saving time set to end at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, 2026, his message landed with an extra edge: whatever Congress does next, this weekend's fall-back is going ahead.
The clash is not new, but its timing is. The House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act in July by a bipartisan 308-117 vote, a margin Trump keeps citing as proof the country is ready. The Senate has not voted on it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said there is no consensus among senators to advance it, and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, the bill's most prominent Republican opponent, has vowed to "always oppose" it. So while Trump urges the Senate to "vote [clock-changing] out" and "go back to one time", the chamber that must act remains divided, and the clocks, for now, keep changing.
Trump raised the clock fight during his Corinth appearance on Monday, October 26, part of a swing through Mississippi ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. According to the New York Post's October 27 report, he told the crowd: "The House has already passed a bill five times to make daylight saving permanent. The Senate needs to take a vote." He then turned the complaint into a joke at his own expense, recalling a meeting he missed by an hour. "I'm always late. I had a big meeting and I was an hour late," he said.
The president went on to claim that "everyone hates" the ritual of changing clocks, and urged senators to end it outright. "No more changing the clock," he said. He also said the Sunshine Protection Act "remains locked" in the Senate, even though the House passed it by 308-117. The day before, on Sunday, he had blasted the Senate on social media for "letting the Daylight Saving Bill die", the latest in a series of public pressure campaigns that began in early October.
That earlier campaign was unusually personal. On October 2, Trump posted on Truth Social urging Senate Republicans to pass what he called the "No More Changing of Clocks Act", officially the Sunshine Protection Act, arguing that Americans are tired of adjusting their clocks and prefer an extra hour of evening sunlight. The next day he posted Senator Cotton's cellphone number and urged Arkansas residents to call him, after Cotton had emerged as the bill's chief blocker. Cotton responded that he would "always put Arkansas first", and fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham joked in reply: "Probably getting a new phone. iPhone or Android?"
None of it has moved the Senate. Thune, who has opposed previous efforts to lock the clock, told reporters on October 6 that there is "no clear path forward or consensus" on the measure. "The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues," Thune said. "It's something we're having conversations about, but there's no clear path forward or consensus on it yet." Thune added that geography shapes how senators see the question: where a senator lives, he said, probably has as much to do with their position as anything else.
The United States has been arguing about its clocks for more than a century. The Standard Time Act of 1918 first established standard time and daylight saving time, and the Uniform Time Act of 1966 set the modern framework: daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. The Department of Transportation now oversees time zones and uniform observance, but it says it has no authority to repeal or change daylight saving time itself. Only Congress can do that.
Under that framework, states may exempt themselves from daylight saving time, but they cannot independently adopt permanent daylight saving time. That is why Hawaii and most of Arizona simply stay on standard time all year, while the rest of the country springs forward and falls back. The Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, is the notable exception inside Arizona: it does observe daylight saving time to stay in step with neighbouring states, while the Hopi Reservation inside it follows Arizona's no-change rule. Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands also do not observe the change.
Congress has tried permanent daylight saving time before, and the memory of that experiment is central to the opposition. In 1974, during the energy crisis, Congress enacted year-round daylight saving time, but repealed it after public dissatisfaction with late winter sunrises. Cotton recalled that history in an October 2025 Senate floor speech, warning that "millions of Americans traveled to work and school in darkness" under the experiment. His office referred reporters back to that speech when Trump first pressed the issue in October.
The House vote in July showed how broad the appetite for change is, at least in one chamber: 193 Republicans, 114 Democrats and one independent backed the bill. But the Senate, where a single determined opponent and a lack of consensus can stall legislation for months, has proved a different proposition. The bill was referred to the Commerce Committee, and Thune, who voted against the proposal in committee, has shown no sign of forcing a floor vote.
The Sunshine Protection Act would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the spring-forward and fall-back cycle. In practice, that means keeping the clocks where they are in summer: sunsets would stay later in the evening through winter, but sunrises would also shift later in the morning. Supporters argue that extra evening light benefits families, businesses, outdoor activities and public safety, and Trump has repeatedly described the current system as costly, stressful and "bad for crime".
Opponents draw a sharp distinction that often gets lost in the debate: ending clock changes is not the same as choosing daylight saving time forever. Cotton has conceded that "clock changes can be bad for health", but argues that "the best evidence suggests that the natural rhythms of our internal body clocks align more closely with Standard Time than Daylight Savings Time." On that view, the healthier permanent option would be standard time year-round, not daylight saving time, a position also held by Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.
The practical consequences of permanent daylight saving time would vary enormously by latitude. In Florida, where supporters point to later evening light for tourism and recreation, the change would be modest. In northern and western states, winter sunrises would slide to strikingly late hours. Montana Senator Steve Daines has warned that sunrise in western Montana would not arrive until 9:30 a.m. in midwinter, joking that the bill would not "see the light of day". Cotton has cited sunrises after 8 a.m. or even 8:30 a.m. in Arkansas towns such as Bentonville, Fayetteville and Fort Smith, for three months of the year.
For now, none of that is decided, and the existing schedule governs. Daylight saving time in 2026 runs from March 8 to November 1. At 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, clocks in observing areas move back to 1 a.m., repeating an hour. Most phones, computers and connected devices will adjust automatically, but analogue clocks, car dashboards, microwaves and ovens will need manual changes before bed on Saturday night, October 31. Standard time then remains in place until daylight saving time returns on Sunday, March 14, 2027, when clocks spring forward one hour to 3 a.m.
Trump's Corinth remarks drew the sharpest lines in the debate. "The House has already passed a bill five times to make daylight saving permanent. The Senate needs to take a vote," he said, before adding: "No more changing the clock." He framed the issue as one where public opinion is settled and only the Senate is holding out, claiming "many many Americans are very disappointed" by the delay and that "everyone hates" the ritual.
Cotton answered with Arkansas specifics rather than national polling. "For many Arkansans, permanent Daylight Savings Time would mean the sun wouldn't rise until after 8:00 or even 8:30 a.m. during the dead of winter," he said. "Three months out of the year, kids in towns like Bentonville, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith would start school ahead of the sun." He added: "Meanwhile, construction workers, farmers, and others who rise before the sun or need the sun to work would be penalized. These workers might go three, four, even five hours in the morning without seeing the sun, which would hurt their quality of life and potentially their safety in the workplace."
Other senators have raised similar geographic objections. Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker has pointed to "safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours". Daines, speaking about western Montana, said: "I can see where Florida likes it for tee times at certain times of the year, but it doesn't work so well for moms and dads putting kids on buses when the sunrise in Western Montana wouldn't be until 9:30 in the morning. It's not going to work for us." Thune, for his part, has kept the door ajar without committing to a vote, saying only that conversations are continuing and that geography drives much of the disagreement.
The clock fight matters first because it touches almost everyone, twice a year, in a way few Washington debates do. The November change alters sleep, school runs, commutes, broadcast schedules, flight times and business calls across the country, and the confusion is real: after November 1, Phoenix lines up with Denver on Mountain time again instead of with Los Angeles on Pacific time, and a standing call with Arizona effectively moves by an hour. For a week each autumn, even the gap with London shifts, because Britain turned its clocks back on October 25, a week before the United States, leaving London four hours ahead of New York instead of the usual five.
It matters politically because it has become a test of Trump's leverage over the Senate in the final week before the midterms. Trump has thrown his full weight behind the bill, named and shamed its opponents, and tied it to a promise voters can feel: no more changing clocks. That the Senate has not budged, despite a 308-117 House vote and repeated presidential pressure, shows the limits of that leverage when senators believe their own voters, especially parents of schoolchildren and early-morning workers in northern and western states, would be worse off.
It also matters because the choice is not simply change versus no change. If Congress ever does act, it will have to choose between permanent daylight saving time and permanent standard time, and the health and safety evidence points in different directions depending on which question is asked. Permanent daylight saving time maximises evening light; permanent standard time aligns more closely with the body's internal clock and keeps winter mornings brighter. The current bill chooses the first option, and its opponents, including some who agree the twice-yearly switch should end, are blocking it precisely because of that choice.
The immediate next step is the one Trump cannot stop: on Sunday, November 1, clocks fall back. Americans in observing states will gain an hour overnight and lose an hour of evening daylight, with darker afternoons arriving just as the midterm campaign enters its final days. The change also lands the day before the November 3 election, a quirk that will not affect voting hours, which are set locally, but will colour the final weekend of campaigning with earlier sunsets.
In the Senate, the question is whether Trump's renewed public pressure produces a vote or simply another round of statements. Thune has not scheduled one, and with the midterms days away, the chamber's attention is elsewhere. If the bill remains unpassed when the current Congress ends, it will have to start again in the next one, and the House vote will have to be won a second time. Trump's allies could also try to attach clock provisions to a must-pass bill, but that route has not been signalled and would face the same geographic objections.
Watch three things in the coming weeks. First, whether any senator breaks from the current positions, particularly among Republicans from northern states who have stayed quiet. Second, whether Trump escalates again, as he did in early October with the phone-number post, or lets the issue rest until after the election. Third, what happens in the states: several state legislatures have already passed measures favouring permanent daylight saving time that cannot take effect without federal action, and their frustration may build if Congress stalls again. For now, the safest advice remains the oldest: set the analogue clocks back on Saturday night, and expect to do it all again in March.
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, November 1, 2026, when clocks move back one hour to 1 a.m. Most digital devices adjust automatically; analogue clocks, car clocks and appliances need manual changes before bed on Saturday, October 31.
It is the bill that would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the United States, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The House passed it in July 2026 by 308-117, but the Senate has not voted on it, so the law has not changed.
Opponents, led by Senator Tom Cotton, argue it would push winter sunrises to 8 a.m. or later in many places, leaving children travelling to school and workers starting shifts in darkness. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says there is no consensus among senators to advance the bill.
Hawaii and most of Arizona stay on standard time year-round. The Navajo Nation inside Arizona does observe it, while the Hopi Reservation does not. Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands also do not observe it.
Under the current schedule, daylight saving time returns on Sunday, March 14, 2027, at 2 a.m. local time, when clocks spring forward one hour to 3 a.m. That date only changes if Congress passes new legislation.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: Trump's Texas rallies, the Paxton race and a Talarico surge on Oct 27, Washington ballots row: DOJ demands 400 suspected noncitizen votes set aside, and Trump's $5,000 dividend promise back in spotlight seven days before midterms.
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