After the Midterm Rout, Trump Turns His Gaze to the Clock

In the days after an election that left Republicans counting their losses, President Trump turned his attention to time itself. He renewed his long-running push to end the twice-yearly ritual of changing the clocks and criticized lawmakers for failing to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, the bill that would make daylight saving time permanent across the United States.

The timing is pointed. Americans had just set their clocks back an hour, losing an hour of evening light as winter approaches. It is a moment that reliably produces complaints about dark commutes and groggy mornings. By reviving the issue now, the president is reaching for one of the few policy questions that unites voters across party lines, even as his party absorbs a defeat at the ballot box.

According to reporting by The New York Times, Mr. Trump blamed Congress for letting the measure stall. The legislation has had a strange history on Capitol Hill. The Senate passed a version by unanimous consent in 2022, a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, but the bill then sat untouched in the House until the session ended. Since then it has been reintroduced repeatedly, drawing broad sympathy and little movement.

The idea is simple: keep the clocks permanently set forward, so that summer-style evening light lasts all year. Supporters say that would help retailers, encourage outdoor activity and spare Americans the disruption of moving the clock twice a year. Several states have already passed laws to adopt permanent daylight saving time if Congress allows it, which under federal law it must.

Scientists sound a different alarm

Many sleep researchers agree that the clock changes should stop. Where they part ways with the president is on which time to keep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has argued that permanent standard time, not daylight saving time, matches the body's natural rhythms more closely. Morning light helps set the internal clock, and a permanent shift forward would leave much of the country waking in darkness for months of the year.

Those researchers warn that the internal clock does not negotiate. Push the clock face too far from the sun, they say, and the body lags behind like a passenger left on the platform, with consequences that research has linked to poorer sleep, reduced alertness and broader health effects. Critics also recall that the country has tried this before: in 1974, Congress adopted year-round daylight saving time during an energy crisis, only to reverse course within a year after a public backlash over dark winter mornings.

A political clock running down

For Mr. Trump, the issue offers something close to an easy win: a popular grievance, a ready-made bill and a chance to cast Congress as the obstacle. But the path is narrow. With Democrats taking more power on Capitol Hill after the election, the question is whether a lame-duck session or the next Congress will have the appetite to take up the bill.

So far, the Sunshine Protection Act has been a measure nearly everyone says they like and almost no one has managed to pass. The president has made it clear he wants that to change. Scientists, meanwhile, are asking lawmakers to make sure that if they stop the clocks, they stop them at the right time.