Yes Please! Trump Wants to End Twice Yearly Time Changes (DST)

President-elect Donald Trump took to social media Friday to announce his intention to turn daylight saving time into U.S. standard time which would eliminated the twice-a-year clock changes.

“Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!” Trump posted in 2019.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump criticized switching to and from daylight saving time for its inconvenience and economic costs to the nation. He said he would try to eliminate the practice once he returns to office.

“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Trump wrote.

The practice of advancing clocks by an hour each spring and resetting them back in the fall was originally implemented in 1942 as a wartime effort to conserve energy by making better use of daylight, according to The Associated Press. Despite its long-standing place in American life, daylight saving time has consistently faced scrutiny and calls for its elimination.

In Congress, efforts to end the biannual time change have emerged periodically, AP reported. The most significant recent legislative push was the Sunshine Protection Act 2023, a bipartisan proposal led by Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Trump has nominated Rubio to serve as his secretary of state.

Rubio’s proposal aimed to make daylight saving time permanent, but it has since stalled.

Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott also weighed in on the matter.

“Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Scott said.

This isn’t the first time Trump has backed the movement to adopt permanent standard time and eliminate daylight saving time.

“Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!” Trump posted in 2019.