My time zone keeps appearing as UTC-0 rather than EST

<span class="text-blue-500 underline" title="Comment by {{ $comment->user->name }} at {{ \Carbon\Carbon::parse($comment->updated_at)->setTimezone('America/New_York')->format('M d, Y H:i A') }}">    {{ App\Utilities\DateFormatter::formatDateAsPhrase($comment->updated_at) }}</span>

This is the area in my PHP file that I'm trying to ensure is EST time. In my .env file the APP_TIMEZONE is set to America/New_York as well. Anytime I hover over the UTC is still being displayed even after forcing the setTimezone. The db (sqlite) stores as UTC but should be converting to EST anyway.

Tried hard coding (above), clearing cache (php artisan config:clear), config(app.timezone)