Trump weighs in on Daylight Saving Time debate

President Donald Trump previously promised to eliminate daylight saving time. Ending twice yearly time change in America "should be the easiest" issue of all, President Donald Trump said Thursday. But it’s not that simple, he added, as Americans’ views on time change have shifted.

With half of Americans wanting standard time and the other half wanting Daylight Saving year-round, "what else do we have to do?" Trump said. As Americans get ready to once again "spring forward" for Daylight Saving Time Sunday, President Donald Trump weighed in Thursday on whether the U.S.



will end time change for good. Every year there’s talk about ending the time change, but it never translates into action. In December, Trump promised to eliminate daylight saving time , which would leave standard time ("falling back") year-round.

Conversely, a bipartisan bill named the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight saving time permanent has stalled in Congress for the last several years; it has been reintroduced this year. What they're saying: "So this should be the easiest one of all," Trump said at the White House Thursday when asked about the time change. "But it's a 50/50 issue.

And if something is a 50/50 issue, it's hard to get excited about it. 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 ..

. 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 where that's the case, what else do we have to do?" Dig deeper: Trump doesn’t have the authority as president to end time change. That has to be done by either Congress or the Secretary of Transportation. President-elect Donald Trump said he wants to eliminate daylight saving time.

LiveNOW's Andrew Craft spoke about the debate to end Daylight Saving Time with Dan Diamond from The Washington Post. Daylight saving time begins Sunday, March 9 at 2 a.m.

, an hour of sleep vanishing in most of the U.S. The ritual will reverse on Nov.

2 when clocks "fall back" as daylight saving time ends. RELATED: When is the happiest time of day? Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t make the spring switch, sticking to standard time year-round along with Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam and the U.S.

Virgin Islands. FILE - Photo of person changing clock (Leon Neal/Getty Images) By the numbers: The majority of Americans, 54%, say they are ready to do away with time change, according to a poll run by Gallup from January 21-27, 2025. Americans most commonly said they’d prefer keeping standard time the whole year (48%), even if it meant losing sunlight in the summertime.

RELATED: As daylight saving time approaches, most Americans say they're ready to end it The American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine agrees and says sticking with standard time year-round aligns better with the sun — and human biology — for more consistent sleep. Dig deeper: During the 1970s energy crisis, the U.S.

started doing daylight saving time all year long, and Americans didn’t like it. With the sun not rising in the winter in some areas till around 9 a.m.

or even later, people were waking up in the dark, going to work in the dark and sending their children to school in the dark. The other side: Using standard time all year would mean losing that extra hour of daylight for eight months in the evenings in the United States. Daylight saving time, or DST, was formally introduced in the U.

S. in 1918 during World War I. The backstory: In the 1890s, George Vernon Hudson, an astronomer and entomologist in New Zealand, proposed a time shift in the spring and fall to increase the daylight.

And in the early 1900s, British home builder William Willett, troubled that people weren’t up enjoying the morning sunlight, made a similar push. But neither proposal gained enough traction to be implemented. Germany began using daylight saving time during World War I with the thought that it would save energy.

Other countries, including the United States, soon followed suit. During World War II, the U.S.

once again instituted what was dubbed "war time" nationwide, this time year-round. In the United States today, every state except Hawaii and Arizona observes daylight saving time. Around the world, Europe, much of Canada and part of Australia also implement it, while Russia and Asia don’t currently.

After World War II, a patchwork of timekeeping emerged across the United States, with some areas keeping daylight saving time and others ditching it. So in 1966, the U.S.

Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which says states can either implement daylight saving time or not, but it has to be statewide. The act also mandates the day that daylight saving time starts and ends across the country. The Source: This report includes information from President Donald Trump, The Associated Press and previous LiveNow from FOX reporting.

FOX's Megan Ziegler contributed..