Will Trump change daylight saving time? He says it's a ‘50/50' issue
Donald Trump is still pondering what to do — if anything — about daylight saving time.
Most of the US is about to "spring forward" on March 9, when clocks will be set one hour ahead to adjust from the extra hour of sunlight heading into the warmer months of the year.
That is, unless Trump changes things.
The president has spoken previously about his desire to make the springtime clock permanent, and eliminate the practice of setting clocks back an hour in the winter time. The practice as we know it started in the early 1900s in Canada and central Europe and is meant to shift people's schedules so they experience more daylight in a typical day.
According to Trump, getting rid of the clock adjustments is a "50/50 issue," so he's not sure what he's going to do about the practice, Axios reports.
"It's a 50/50 issue, and if something is a 50/50 issue, it's hard to get excited about it,' Trump said on Thursday. 'I assume people would like to have more light later, but some people want to have more light earlier because they don't want to take their kids to school in the dark.'
Trump said the fact that the nation was split on the issue was holding him back from making any decisions.
"And it's something I can do, but a lot of people like it one way, a lot of people like it the other way, it's very even and usually I find when that's the case what else do we have to do?" Trump said.
If Trump makes any change one way or the other, it will affect most Americans. Only two states keep consistent clocks all year long — Arizona and Hawaii — but depending on what Trump decides, they may also have to adjust their time keeping.
Daylight saving time was adopted for the US under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, and Congress would have the ultimate say in whether or not the clocks change.
Over the past few years, then-Senator Marco Rubio has attempted to push for a permanent daylight saving time across the nation under the Sunshine Protection Act, but the bills ultimately die before they can reach a vote.
Earlier this year, Senator Rick Scott of Florida introduced the bill once again.
"I'm excited to have President Trump back in the White House and fully on board to LOCK THE CLOCK so we can get this good bill passed and make this common-sense change that will simplify and benefit the lives of American families," Scott wrote in January.
It seems like that Trump backing is a little less sure now.
Trump wasn't always so middle of the road on daylight saving time; back in December he made it clear that the Republicans, under his leadership, would try to eliminate it completely.
"The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn't!," Trump said at the time.
He further called it "inconvenient" and "very costly to our nation."
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