Trump Just Posted GOP Sen. Tom Cotton’s Private Phone Number

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So our dear president decided that on a Saturday morning, he wanted to promote legislation to change the way we're doing daylight savings. I'm just going to read to you a little bit from what he posted and then Joe and I will go at it. To everybody in Arkansas, Tom Cotton, Senator Tom Cotton, who he says is a friend of mine, he's holding up a very important bill. It's called the Sunshine Protection Act and it's to end the whole practice of daylight savings. Joe, I'm going to ask you which way we're going because I'm always confused about this, but to end, we're no longer going to move the clocks back anymore and Trump says everybody wants this done. And Tom Cotton is standing in the way. And then Trump posts Tom Cotton's phone number at the end of this and tells everybody in Arkansas to call it. I'm not going to read out Cotton's phone number. If you want to look it up, just go to Trump's Truth Social feed and you'll find it there. Joe, what the heck is going on here? Why did he do this? Is this going to work? What's going on? He's doing this because he clearly has his eye on the ball when it comes to the midterm elections. This bill's been held up for quite a while by Tom Cotton. You know, let's go back 50 years. Congress did this. They did the permanent daylight saving. It was so unpopular because there were more accidents, there was more depression, kids were getting dropped off at school and pitch black at, you know, 9.30 a.m., that they reversed it two years later. Everyone thought, great, let's move on. That was a dumb idea. And now it's been floating around Congress for years now, but it finally got some momentum like last year and they wanted to pass it via unanimous consent. And Tom Cotton stood up and, you know, for all his faults, he at least knows his history on this issue. And he said, no, this is going to lead to more accidents as it did 50 years ago. Everyone's going to hate it. So I'm going to object and we're not going to do it. And he's been vowing to stand up and object every time they try to repass it. And it's kind of like the perfect, like Congress initiative because it's ignoring history. It's going to result in bad things, but it's generally popular. If you don't really know the full picture of what this law would actually do. And it has like the perfect Congress name of the Sunshine Protection Act, as if sunshine needs to be protected. Posting Cotton's phone number is uniquely hilarious. It's a very old Trump trick. I, as the journalist I am, I immediately called the number, mailbox full. So if you're going to call it after watching this video, you'll probably get the same answer. He's probably already at the AT&T or Verizon store, whatever his carrier is. I'm getting a new number. This was just hilarious because it was like a classic Trump move. And it's a bill that won't do anything. And Congress isn't in DC and then the House and Senator out for the rest of the month and after. So they're not going to be back till after the election anyway. A thing he's interested in because he owns many golf courses and him taking it out on like one of his most faithful allies, because why the hell not? And it, you know, brought us back to that moment in 2015, when he did the same thing to Lindsey Graham, read his phone number in the middle of a rally. - Trump says in this post that 65% plus want this bill, want this change. He says 300 members of the house was like 300 to 117, 308 to 117 voted for this bill. Joe, are you telling me that more than 300 members of the house voted for a bad idea? - I mean, it happens pretty frequently, but this is the kind of thing where it's like, it sounds like a good idea, like more daylight after, after work, like nobody likes the sun setting early in the winter, but there's certain parts of the country where the sun won't rise until 10:00 AM. People don't want that. We have a historical account of people not wanting it. - So it sounds like Tom Cotton is the hero in this story, or at least not the villain. Is he covering for other members of Congress who want to vote for this thing, because maybe it is popular in polls, even though it's a bad idea, and they're counting on this one Senator to stand in the way? - The primary sponsors of this bill, and there's been various versions of this bill over the years. They're all from Florida, because Florida has the most golf courses. The bill wouldn't hurt them the way that it hurts somebody in the Pacific Northwest or someone in, up in like North Dakota, where you're not getting sunrise till 10:00 AM. So Cotton's kind of putting himself at the forefront of this. He's from a state where he doesn't have to worry about a huge challenger. He does, he can take the fall for this. So there's a lot of, I know for a fact, there's a lot of members that don't like this bill. It's also not a priority. Like the Senate wants to confirm Trump judges, at least in the Republican majority, and they want to pass tax cuts and border protection bills and ICE funding. They don't want to do these random things because the calendar's already so full. And now they're not even in town, but Cotton's just been in the way of this because he decided that of the many things in the Trump era, this is the one thing to take a stand on. So I guess good for him. - Correct me if I'm wrong, Joe, but listening to you, I'm getting the impression that this is all about the golf industry that they're behind. I mean, Trump talks about, he's got the letter from the CEO of the PGA Tour. And you're talking about the courses in Florida. Is that what's going on here? - The main advocates of this bill say like, this is for everybody. Like everyone's going to want this. It's the golf industry that really wants this thing. And he kind of makes a note of that where he says, oh, like golfers want it, tennis players want it. And then he goes, and also our farmers want extra daylight to work and/or play. I don't know what that means. You know, there's not a lot of industries like waiting on this. It's not like it's going to help our economy in any way. It just seems like a general idea that's maybe sounds good if you want to play golf after work in the winter. - We're going into a midterm when there is a lot of unease among the voters about golf. And I think that's where it's going to be a little bit more about the economy. Higher grocery prices, higher gas prices, higher diesel prices. And here is the president posting a message basically on behalf of the golf industry. And I mean, don't take it from me, as Joe says, Trump not only posted his message, but he attached to it a copy of a letter from the CEO of the PGA Tour. I'm just going to quote a line. "An extra hour of evening light sounds simple, but for everyday golfers, the difference between getting on the course and not." And it's a really weird use of the phrase "everyday Americans." Let me just throw in a stat here, Joe, and I'll kick it over to you. The average annual salary in the United States is just under $69,000. The average annual income of an amateur golfer is $100,000 to $125,000. That's all from AI, so take it with a large grain of salt. But the point is golfers are wealthier, even amateur golfers, than average person. It's just a weird thing to be doing, going into this midterm, to be talking about golfers and the PGA Tour, certainly, as everyday Americans. Like, even if you are a golfer, but you're not a particularly wealthy golfer, which is very common. A lot of people love golf and play golf. I like to play golf. This isn't getting your gas prices down. It's not getting your grocery prices down. It's not even getting the price of, you know, 18 holes down. It is literally just adding more tee times later in the day for half the year. Like, that's it. And so it's more about, if you own a golf course-- a couple of members of Congress actually do, and the president certainly does-- then you can, you know, keep them open longer and maybe make some more money. JOSH SHARFSTEIN: Who owns a golf course in Congress? ANTHONY FAUCI: Ro Khanna. Technically, his kids own it. I think it's for tax reasons. There's been substantial reporting on the golf courses in his very vast portfolio. I am not sure of the roll call right now, whether or not he supported this thing. But generally speaking, he's not, you know, clamoring for better golf. It is not the same thing as Trump, obviously, who very much likes to bring up golf. And this is-- golf courses is one of his favorite. That's why his opposition to windmills-- a lot of stuff about Trump circles back to him loving golf and golf courses. ANTHONY FAUCI: I mean, Trump is framing this as a thing for golfers when it sounds like it's really for the course owners. And I would just point out, this letter from the CEO of the PGA Tour says, "Permanent daylight savings time"-- this is a quote-- "would add $1 billion annually in new direct revenue for the golf industry because of the extra tee times." So, like, the guy frames it openly as this is in the interest of the golf course owners. It just feels like a classic old-fashioned Republican move, Like we're doing this thing for industry. we're framing as actually for ordinary people trump has his unique ability to personify the old-school caricatures of republicans where he you know puts everything in gold and like only cares about like the financial angle of anything over like the human angle republicans spent decades like fighting that bad rap and for example this bill trump just says yeah it's about golf we love golf and if you had spoke to the members of congress about this and we've you know i've written about this briefly i wrote about it when cotton took his original stand the people who were advocating for it were like this is all about wellness but it's trump then reveals no it's about golf ready to level up your day then join me and my friends at lonestarcasino.com that's l-o-n-e-s-t-a-r casino where you can experience the thrill of las vegas no matter where you are lonestarkasino.com is an absolutely free to play social casino with thousands of games daily bonuses free spins and pots that pop like fireworks hit pause on life and hit play on lonestarcasino.com lonestar casino is a free to play social casino avoid where prohibited visit lonestarkasino.com for more details sign up today for an incredible welcome bonus play bold win big um i gotta ask you about something else we that's really weird in this post i don't know what to make of it there's a sentence where trump says it's very expensive for our nation where you have high and dangerous steeples to reach like on churches and municipal buildings and that's supposed to be relevant to this daylight savings question do you have any idea what he's talking about there with the steeples i have no clue there's when he gets going on a rant it it becomes hard to follow so when i saw this when i thought about is he talking about construction because anybody who knows anything about construction the construction workers like to get out early in the morning they want to beat rush hour traffic they want to get to their site the idea of taking away the morning daylight hours from them does not seem to make any sense to me i maybe i'm wrong and there's a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about i don't know wrong and there's a lot of i don't see nearly as much construction work in the afternoons so it just seems backwards to me what he's saying um let me ask about the uh this whole idea of posting phone numbers so he did it trump did this to lindsey graham what was it 10 years ago i think six weeks after trump announced his run in june of 2015 and then in july of 2015 he at a rally he reads lindsey graham was running for president at the time i know because i have this very old lindsey graham from president 2016 it's starting to rust through i have a richard nixon one that's you know five times as old and it's not all rusty so so he read graham's phone number and right when that happened um i was working at a small publication that's not as you know successful and great place to be as the bulwark is now i was a you know young reporter and i immediately go we need to do something about this so i'm like what if we take him shopping for a new cell phone and test out new ones quickly decided that was stupid and boring no one watched that then the idea was actually let's blow up phones and have lindsey graham smash phones explode them and it turned out to like the first big viral moment of the 2016 campaign cycle it was a massive fire hazard there were no precautions i don't even think there was a fire extinguisher on site and it came back up again when lindsey graham passed away earlier this year um as like you know one of his defining moments uh outside of the actual senate and trump clearly learned that he can burn someone just by listing their phone tom if you're watching also unlikely but tom if you're watching let's blow up some phones okay so but why is it can you explain to me joe why trump hasn't he hasn't done this since then is that right between 2015 and now to my knowledge definitely not to uh a u.s senator in that time um or a member of the house he's not actually trying to get people to lobby for this bill to tom cotton with their phones or else he would have put tom coffins tom cotton's office number he did this to basically say i don't like you i don't like what you're doing and i'm gonna ruin your day so joe it feels a little weird to be mean to your loyal senator in arkansas at this moment for all the reasons we were just discussing i was looking at trump's approval rating in arkansas he's underwater in arkansas of this very red state he's what 46 positive 53 negative one of his best states right now except that probably is everybody knows the republicans are in serious trouble we just had polling out today about how much trouble they're in in the senate races it seems like you would want to pull people together and what you're saying is that it's not just him lobbying for a bill it's not going to be constructive in any way in part because they're not even going to be in session he's just taking a shot at somebody and making them miserable i mean it just seems self-destructive this fiasco from this morning is classic trump it is it doesn't hit him that not doing things that people like or that will actually help people is going to hurt him in november he that hasn't gotten through to him so it's just him saying whatever i don't care and so he's not trying to make anything good happen he's just starting and picking fights this is another example of something that's going to totally take over a lot of news cycles it's going to take over new cycles in places maybe like florida where this bill is important to a lot of business owners but it's also going to take over the news cycle in arkansas because tom cotton's you know going to be the subject of local news it's going to be on national news and it's just going to be another thing where people go why is he doing this instead of doing literally anything else that could be helpful and they're going to pay the price yeah i mean i think you're making a great point up so that's the the public-facing message that not necessarily the message but the implication is this guy is caring about the golf industry not your everyday problems and going right into an election so that's the public problem let me ask you before we go about the senate inside the republican caucus in the senate what is the mood with about trump there i mean he's been abusing various people and here he is going after one of their members one of their one of one he's you know taken out you know he's gone after tom tillis he took out john cornyn he's been picking on people how angry are these guys about trump look there's a lot of uh people who just don't like him and they i think for a long time thought this will pass and we'll get past this and we don't have to deal with this guy so let's just go along to get along and then because it's gone on now for more than 10 years they have to keep going along and this is the republican party now and so the people who speak out and get upset i i don't think tom cotton will respond to this harshly in any way just knowing his behavior uh knowing his loyalty to the party you're not going to see anything about this sentence not in session i can guarantee if they were monday evening uh we'd all be huddled outside of john dune's office and he'd go the president's unorthodox or something like that their anger you can see it more in a more real way when you look at um the way that they've you know cut out things from the budget that were priorities um there's a few senators who are maybe starting to boil over john curtis from utah um has asked to probe uh don jr for having a russian oligarch pay for his wedding but a lot of the times the only time they speak out is after trump's already you know shanked him and they're headed for the exits that's why it's people like tillis it's people like cornyn who are on their way out i'm not gonna i'm not gonna hold my breath and wait for cotton to say anything um it's highly unlikely if you're looking for people to like stand up and say enough don't count on it joe thanks for joining me uh go through all this crazy stuff trump is doing to his own party um everybody uh come visit us at theboard.com joe has a fantastic newsletter press pass where he covers tom cotton and every other republican trump is attacking um and by the way if you want to see us we have some a tour coming up come visit us at theboard.com events winning never sounded so good what would you do if you won big at crown coins casino real people win real prices every single day hi this is michael from georgia i won 40k and finally renovated my home visit crowncoins.com sign up in seconds enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus you may win up to 10 000 sweeps coins crowncoins.com that's c-r-o-w-n coins.com no purchase 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