The self-proclaimed “President of Peace” who started a war in the Middle East wants to register 18-year-old boys for the same national military duty he shirked on five occasions.
The Trump administration’s Selective Service System (SSS), an agency that keeps tabs on draft-age Americans, has proposed doing away with self-registration for enlistment and instead automatically updating its lists with names drawn from other federal databases.
Federal law already requires men between the ages of 18 and 25 to register with the agency in case the president decides to issue a military draft order. SSS expects eligible candidates to self-register within 30 days of their 18th birthday, but otherwise allows men to file late submissions until age 26.
President Donald Trump mandated the new rules, which remain under review pending regulatory approval, in December of last year. Trump’s rules suggest that the president is interested in using emergency enlistment measures the U.S. has not otherwise activated since 1973, during the Vietnam War.
Trump, who attended the New York Military Academy, a prestigious military-style boarding school, did not serve in that conflict, or in any other capacity in the U.S. armed forces. In fact, the president avoided the draft on no fewer than five separate occasions—four times using a student deferment, and a fifth time for medical reasons.
The president’s medical basis for getting out of military service was a bone spur diagnosis, an often harmless condition common among older individuals. He was 22 at the time, and in the many decades since has established something of a track record of disparaging veterans, reportedly referring to them as “losers” and “suckers” in private.
Trump sought to position himself as the “President of Peace” last year, before abandoning the role when it failed to secure him the Nobel Peace Prize. He has defied his 2024 campaign pledges to reduce U.S. military entanglements abroad by invading Venezuela, as well as launching an all-out war with Iran that has since plunged the Middle East and global markets into chaos.
In the past week, he has threatened to wipe the “whole civilization” of Iran off the planet, and more broadly threatened further military action against U.S. allies including Mexico, Colombia, Panama, and Greenland, the last being an autonomous territory of fellow NATO member Denmark.
That aggression has come as the president toys with the idea of granting himself the Congressional Medal of Honor, the United States’ greatest military honor. His justifications for doing so remain unclear, given it would make him the first of more than 3,500 recipients since the award was established in 1861 to receive it without ever having served in the military.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
