Washington – President-elect Donald Trump said Republicans will try to end the decades-long ritual of changing the clocks twice a year, and that the Republican Party will push for the end of daylight saving time.
“The Republican Party will do its utmost to abolish Daylight Savings Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but it shouldn’t have to! Daylight Savings Time is inconvenient and very precious to our nation,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday.
Although Trump has supported the implementation of daylight saving time in the past permanent – that is, moving the clock forward one hour, which happens in the spring – his final comment called for the abolition of daylight saving time. Daylight saving time ends in the fall when the clocks go back one hour.
CBS News has reached out to his spokesperson for clarification.
Congress established daylight saving time in 1918 to add extra daylight hours and help conserve energy during World War I. It was re-implemented during World War II. In 1973, Congress briefly made daylight saving time permanent, but reversed course just months later after public opinion on the experiment soured. The current practice of starting daylight saving time on the second Sunday in March and ending on the first Sunday in April was instituted under President George W. Bush.
Ending the biennial ritual would require approval from Congress.
The Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act in March 2022, which would have made daylight saving time permanent the following year. But the bill was never debated in the House of Representatives.
In October, Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican picked by Trump to lead the State Department, and Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Oregon, called on Congress to pass the legislation.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump appointed to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, also recently commented on the clock changes, with Musk calling it “annoying” and Ramaswamy saying it was “inefficient.”
