President Donald Trump blasted the Senate on Monday for letting the bill to make daylight saving time permanent die in its hands, six days before Americans turn their clocks back again. With the fall-back set for 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, Trump said the country wants the twice-a-year ritual ended and the Senate simply refuses to hold the vote that would end it.
"The United States Senate is letting the Daylight Saving Bill die, when a vast Majority of the Country want it," Trump wrote. "Most people are demanding light in the evening, but ALL want not to change their clocks anymore. TAKE A VOTE!" He attached a passage noting that the House had already passed the bill overwhelmingly and that, with it locked in the Senate, daylight saving time will end as regularly scheduled this weekend, to the disappointment of many Americans.
His argument is the one he has made all month: the light belongs in the evening, when working people can use it, and whatever people think of the details, nobody wants to keep changing the clocks. Earlier this month he called the clock-changing process "ridiculous," saying it "costs our Country a fortune, is bad for Crime, stress on people, Sports, and just about everything else you can imagine." He has cited figures he says show most Americans want more sun in the afternoon, pointed to lower robbery and accident rates and fewer health problems in the evening light, and named the people he says are asking for it: "The farmers want it. Sports want it" — golfers and tennis players who run out of daylight, and hunters — along with families who would get their evenings back.
The bill is the Sunshine Protection Act, and what it does is simple: it makes daylight saving time — the clock the country runs on from March to November — the permanent, year-round time, so the clocks would never move again. The House of Representatives passed it on July 14 by 308 votes to 117, with both parties voting for it in large numbers. Its author, Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, said Americans are tired of the twice-a-year change and urged the Senate to send the bill to the president's desk. The White House formally backed it, and Trump has promised to sign it.
The Senate is where it stopped. The House bill arrived there on July 15 and has sat in committee ever since, with no hearing and no vote scheduled. A Senate version, led by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida with support from Democrats including Sen. Patty Murray, has gone no further. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas objected when supporters tried to pass the bill by unanimous consent last fall and has vowed to block that fast track again — in the Senate, one objection is enough. Majority Leader John Thune has said there is no clear consensus to move it. And the calendar has now closed the question for this year: the Senate is out until after the November 3 midterms, which means no vote can happen before the clocks go back on Sunday.
Cotton's answer is that the country has tried this before and reversed it. "No one likes changing the clock, me included," he wrote, "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. Arkansans don't want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I'll always put Arkansas first." Senators from northern states have raised the same point — in parts of Montana, a permanent daylight clock would mean no sunrise until about 9:30 a.m. in midwinter. Sleep experts take yet another position: they want the clock changes ended too, but on permanent standard time, which they say fits the body's natural rhythms.
The fight is an old one. In March 2022 the Senate passed this same bill by unanimous consent, only for the House to let it die without a vote — this year the two chambers have simply swapped roles. In 1974, during an energy crisis, the country actually tried permanent daylight saving time and repealed it within the year after complaints about dark winter mornings. States including Florida have passed their own permanent-daylight laws that cannot take effect until Congress acts; Hawaii and most of Arizona already stay on standard time all year.
So on Sunday at 2 a.m., the clocks go back an hour, the evenings go dark an hour earlier, and the bill waits — passed by the House, demanded by the president, and stuck in a Senate that will not be back in Washington until the midterm elections are over. Trump has made clear he intends to keep the pressure on when it returns: the vote, he says, is all he is asking for. "TAKE A VOTE!"
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