The president urged people to call Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and accused him of blocking a bill to cement daylight saving time.
Page A3From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 4 October 2026
President couldn't flip a Republican senator's vote on daylight time, so he flipped his phone number public.
As it ran on the front
That friction between the party's own candidates and its own president is the backdrop for what the president would do to one of his own senators three weeks later.
Twenty days after that, Canada supplied the comparison. On September 29th, officials in the Northwest Territories announced that clocks there will not "fall back" in November, becoming the standard — less than a week after Manitoba officials said daylight saving time there would become permanent too. The Hill's own headline on it called the change what residents "asked us for." No senator's personal number went out to make that happen. No network had to run anyone's cellphone across a news desk. A government decided a policy and announced it, and the clocks changed.…
…(cont) On Saturday, in Washington, the president posted the personal cellphone number of Senator Tom Cotton, a sitting Republican from Arkansas, on Truth Social and urged the public to call him, according to The New York Times. The number went out anyway, to a fellow Republican, in public, with an instruction attached: pressure him until it moves. What started as a stalled bill is now, on the record, a public tussle between two members of the same party, the kind of fight a party usually keeps off a senator's own cellphone.
Put the three beats in order and the asymmetry is the whole story. Canada changed its clocks with a press release. The United States has not changed its clocks at all. What moved instead was a phone number — out of a senator's pocket and into a crowd, because the normal mechanism, a vote, didn't go the president's way. The bill is still stalled. The number is not.
“This is the oldest move at the bar: you can't win the vote, so you turn the senator's own voters into the pressure campaign, cellphone and all, in public, with his name on it. Canada changed the same clocks with a press release last month — no premier had to publish anybody's personal number to get it done. When the president can't move one vote in his own party, he doesn't change the policy, he changes the target.”
“Look, the president is just making sure Senator Cotton hears from his constituents — that's outreach, that's democracy working as intended. That the outreach happens to route through a number that's reportedly his personal cell and not some office line, well — I didn't say "posted," I said "shared." There's a difference. There has to be a difference.”
Earlier in this story
- Flag etiquette is mandatory for a congressional nominee, optional for the President's own social media account. By Lou · the early evening edition, 3 October 2026
- President posts senator's cell number over clock bill same week his convention chair admits rallies dropped votes By Sal · the early evening edition, 3 October 2026
- President whose rallies dropped his own numbers broadcasts a senator's personal number instead. By Sal · the early bird edition, 3 October 2026
The receipts
· Permanent daylight saving time expands in Canada: 'Gives residents what they’ve asked us for' from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Trump’s escalation of fight with Canada puts GOP Senate candidates in a vice from the morgue, 9 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.