Automatic Registration for U.S. Military Draft Coming Soon

President Trump plans to automatically sign up military draft-eligible men for a potential draft, an ominous decision to make in the midst of a war on Iran.

While registration into Selective Service—the massive database that tells the United States how many men it can force into war in the event of a national emergency—has historically been required for every U.S. male upon turning 18, the sign-up process was manual.

“On December 18, 2025, the President signed the FY 2026 [National Defense Authorization Act] into law, mandating automatic Selective Service registration. The Agency engaged with Congress throughout the NDAA process regarding the automated legislative proposal,” the Selective Service System said in a public statement. “This statutory change transfers responsibility for registration from individual men to SSS through integration with federal data sources. SSS will implement the change by December 2026, resulting in a streamlined registration process and corresponding workforce realignment.”

Multiple Democrats were quick to call out the administration’s misplaced priorities.

“If they can automatically register you for WAR, they can automatically register you to VOTE,” Democratic House of Representatives candidate Sarah McGee wrote on X. Others posted old tweets from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller about how young men should vote for Trump lest they be “drafted to fight in Kamala’s and Cheney’s 3rd World War.”

The last time the U.S. had a draft was in 1973, for the Vietnam War, which caused institutional and ideological damage that this country is still dealing with today. A draft in this era would be even more catastrophic.

Relations between the United States and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.

“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the fourteenth century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France.

The Trump administration had taken issue with the pope’s critique of its militaristic proclivities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top Pentagon officials were particularly aggrieved by portions of Leo’s January 9 speech in which the pope argued that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force,” and that “war is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.”

The pope’s address was dissected line by line and interpreted as a hostile message toward the administration, reported Letters from Leo Substack writer Christopher Hale.

It was difficult not to interpret Leo’s comments as an immediate commentary on Donald Trump’s second administration, which had at that point bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, fiercely advocated for the dissolution of NATO, and threatened America’s allies, including claiming that the U.S. would seize control of Canada and Greenland.

But the blatant intimidation tactic is the first of its kind ever made by American officials to the Catholic Church. There are no public records of any previous meetings between Vatican and U.S. officials at the Pentagon, let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.

The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo canceled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”

Tensions had not been mended by February, when the Holy See rejected the White House’s invitation to host Pope Leo—the religious order’s first U.S.-born pontiff—for America’s 250th anniversary in July. Instead, the Catholic leader has arranged to visit a very different locale on July 4: Lampedusa, a tiny island between Tunisia and Sicily where North African immigrants wash ashore by the thousands.

“Robert Francis Prevost is too deliberate a man to have chosen that date by accident,” commented Hale.

The White House has dismissed the entire account, writing in a statement to reporter Barbara Starr that “the Free Press’s characterization of the meeting is highly exaggerated and distorted.”

“The meeting between Pentagon and Vatican officials was a respectful and reasonable discussion,” the Defense Department official continued. “We have nothing but the highest regard and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy See.”

This story has been updated.

As bombs rain down on innocents in the Middle East, gas prices skyrocket, and data centers displace poor communities across the land, at least Americans can take solace in the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is starting a podcast.

The Health and Human Services secretary, best known for having a brain worm and allegedly contributing to 83 Samoan deaths by spreading anti-vaccine propaganda there, announced his new podcast Wednesday with a 90-second video on his government X account.

“Many of us have come to the conclusion that the government actually lies to us,” Kennedy says in the video, presumably forgetting the fact that he works for the government. “This podcast is about telling the truth, especially when it’s uncomfortable.”

Kennedy goes on to say his podcast will involve him speaking to medical experts and innovators in order to tell said truth. He also gets slightly spiritual with things: “I’m going to ask the questions, and lift the taboos, and expose the hypocrisy and the conflicts and the corruption. We’re going to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and we’re going to name the names of the forces that obstruct the paths to public health. This isn’t going to be about politics. It’s about our families, it’s about our children, and it’s about confronting the spiritual malaise and embracing the truth.”

RFK Jr. has spasmodic dysphonia, which makes his voice difficult to listen to at the best of times. But honestly, the podcast idea isn’t a bad one. Our wackjob health secretary debating actual medical experts about Americans’ health problems? It’s like The Joe Rogan Experience meets House!

Unfortunately, it’s hard to believe RFK when he says the podcast won’t be political. More likely, his guests will take the shape of “alternative” medical gurus looking to profit off of listeners and sow distrust in an American medical system that Donald Trump is already trying to defund.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt threw one of her patented tantrums Wednesday in her first appearance since Donald Trump’s deranged threat to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” if it did not agree to his terms.

Andrew Feinberg, a journalist with The Independent, asked Leavitt how Trump could claim the U.S. was fighting a just war after such extreme rhetoric.

“When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, George W. Bush said in a message to the Iraqi people that the military campaign was directed ‘against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you,’” Feinberg said. “Yesterday, the president threatened to destroy Iran’s civilization.… Not the Iranian government, but the Iranian civilization. The Iranian people. The U.S. has been a moral leader for most of its history by fighting wars against other governments, not against civilizations. How can the president claim that America can ever have the moral high ground if he’s threatening to destroy civilizations?”

Leavitt shot back, using all the jingoism she could muster: “Andrew, I think you should take a look at the actions of this president over the course of the past six weeks, and the actions of the brave men and women in the United States military.… The president absolutely has the moral high ground over the Iranian terrorist regime, and for you to even suggest otherwise is frankly insulting.”

Leavitt then called on a different reporter over Feinberg’s protestations. Feinberg could be heard saying, “With all due respect, Karoline …” a handful of times before giving up, as it became clear that Leavitt wasn’t going to let him speak again.

Leavitt received a similar question later in the conference when a reporter asked what her understanding of Trump’s “a whole civilization will die tonight” post was.

“I think it was a very, very strong threat from the president that led the Iranian regime to cave to their knees and ask for a ceasefire and agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” Leavitt replied.

“It was a very strong threat that led to results. And as the secretary of war stated at the Pentagon this morning, it was not an empty threat by any means. The Pentagon had a target list that they were ready to hit go on at 8 p.m. last night, if the Iranian regime had not agreed to open the Strait, which they did. I think that’s something we should all be grateful for.”

“Does he see the United States as a moral leader in the world given that he’s—” the reporter pressed before Leavitt cut her off.

“I was asked this exact same question by your colleague … and I think again, the insinuation by anyone in this room that Iran somehow has the moral high ground over the United States of America is insulting,” Leavitt said.

In addition to Leavitt misrepresenting some facts here—the Strait of Hormuz is again closed after Israel attacked Lebanon Wednesday morning, per Iranian reporting—the fact that the White House is actually praising the president’s threat to exterminate an entire nation is as cruel as it gets. But would you expect anything less from such a bloodthirsty regime?

Recent reporting from the Financial Times reveals it was President Trump, not the Iranian government, who was begging for a ceasefire.

FT reports that the Trump administration had been privately pushing for a ceasefire for weeks to alleviate the economic strain caused by Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, and depending on Pakistan for mediation. Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir was communicating with Iranian officials, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Vice President JD Vance, and Trump himself even after the president threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization on Tuesday.

According to the five people familiar with the diplomatic back channel, Trump had been asking for a ceasefire since as early as March 21, when he first threatened to bomb Iran’s power plants.

This contradicts virtually everything the Trump administration has claimed about Iran—that Trump’s constant bombings and threats of extinction caused a wounded, demoralized Iranian regime to limp to the negotiating table, desperate for a deal with the U.S.

“They are begging to make a deal, not me. They’re begging to make a deal,” Trump said less than two weeks ago. “And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they wanna make a deal.… They are begging to work out a deal.”

Peace talks between the U.S. and Iran are expected to take place in Islamabad on Friday, although the speaker of Iran’s parliament has claimed the U.S and Israel have already broken the parameters of the already fragile ceasefire.