Did President Joe Biden announce the reintroduction of the draft? No, that's not true: A video showing such a purported announcement was created using artificial intelligence. An online outlet created this video using AI, describing the clip as "AI imagines what would happen if Biden declares and activates the Selective Service Act ..." If such an announcement had actually been made, that would be major news globally, and Google News did not show any relevant results when Lead Stories searched for evidence of Biden announcing the reintroduction of the draft.
The claim appeared on Facebook (archived here) on October 15, 2023. It opened with what appeared to be Biden standing in front of a podium and speaking into microphones. He opens with:
... vote the Selective Service Act, as is my authority as president. Remember, you're not sending your sons and daughters to war, you're sending them to freedom.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Oct 23 15:19:11 2023 UTC)
The Facebook screenshot is blurry because that's how it was captured on Facebook. The video does not tell viewers when this purported announcement was made.
In the Facebook video, there is about nine seconds of Biden's purported announcement, then a bearded man with long hair says how much he disagrees with the reintroduction of the draft. The man does not identify himself.
The original AI video of Biden can be found on X, formerly Twitter. Canadian conservative news outlet The Post Millennial posted the video on February 27, 2023, with the caption, "AI imagines what would happen if Biden declares and activates the Selective Service Act and begins drafting 20 years old to war." The post is below (archived here):
AI imagines what would happen if Biden declares and activates the Selective Service Act and begins drafting 20 years old to war pic.twitter.com/896Htrtteu
-- The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 27, 2023
In The Post Millennial AI creation, Biden is only on the screen for about a minute. The rest of the X video is conservative pundit Jack Posobiec sharing his thoughts. At the 1:03 mark, he says, "Now that was an AI, I don't want to say recreation, maybe a pre-creation, a pre-creation of President Biden designed and scripted by our producers here for the show of what could happen if President Biden were to declare and activate a selective service act and begin drafting 20-year-olds here in the United States."
A Google News search of the phrase, "President Biden reintroducing the draft AND Selective Service Act" did not yield any relevant results (archived here).
The Selective Service Act is a real document that Congress passed in 1917. The act authorized the federal government to temporarily expand the military through conscription, or involuntary enlistment.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to Joe Biden can be found here.
