WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — President Donald Trump indicated Thursday he may not push to end daylight saving time as Americans get ready to spring forward this weekend.
“It’s a 50/50 issue. And if something’s a 50/50 issue, it’s hard to get excited about it,” President Trump said from the Oval Office. “I assume people would like to have more light later, but some people wanna have more light earlier because they don’t want to take their kids to school in the dark.”
In December, he indicated that his party would get rid of the practice.
“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” he wrote.
Setting clocks forward one hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall is intended to maximize daylight during the summer. President Trump emphasized that the public was evenly split on the issue.
“It’s something I can do but a lot of people like it one way, a lot of people like it the other way,” Trump said on Thursday. “It’s very even. And usually, I find when that’s the case, what else do we have to do?”
There has been plenty of debate in the United States about the practice, including in Congress. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have discussed making daylight saving time permanent or getting rid of it altogether, but legislation has yet to pass both chambers of Congress.
This week, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) spoke on the floor about the benefits of making daylight saving time permanent at the federal level.
“Out of all the legislative efforts I’ve been part of in my four years here in Congress, the thing I hear about the most from my people in Alabama is their desire to lock the clock,” Sen. Tuberville said. “It’s a simple way we could positively impact the day-to-day life of all Americans.”
Tuberville is one of several lawmakers backing the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent. The bipartisan bill was reintroduced earlier this year.
In the United States, every state except Hawaii and Arizona observes daylight saving time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.