White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on March 7, 2026 that President Trump "does not remove options off of the table" when asked directly whether a military draft was possible amid the ongoing Iran war. Leavitt did add that ground troops are "not part of the current plan right now." The comments spread rapidly online and prompted fact-checks from both left and right media organizations.

Both Fox News and fact-checkers at Poynter and PolitiFact agree on the legal baseline: a new military draft would require an act of Congress to amend the Military Selective Service Act, whose conscription authority expired in 1973. Males aged 18–25 are still required to register with the Selective Service today, but no draft can be activated without a congressional vote.

Defense experts rate the prospect as remote. Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told multiple outlets that a draft is "opposed by the military, which wants volunteers; by the people; and by Congress, because it angers voters." The current Iran campaign is an air operation; the Pentagon has not requested ground force authorizations from Congress.

Congress has not formally authorized the Iran war under the War Powers Act. Senators from both parties have raised questions in closed briefings about the administration's legal authority to sustain operations beyond 60 days without congressional approval. Sen. Chris Murphy called the briefings "incoherent and incomplete."