Meet Guido Reichstadter, the Marine Veteran Who Scaled D.C. Bridge to Protest Iran War & AI

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]This is Democracy Now, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We go now to Washington, D.C.

[00:00:08]where a former Marine reservist and father of two spent five nights on top of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to protest the war in Iran and artificial intelligence. Guido Reichstadter scaled the 168-foot arch of the bridge on May 1st. He continued to post to social media while he was on top of the bridge. In a social media post Tuesday evening, he said he'd run out of water and would head down, adding he expected to be going to jail for a while.

[00:00:44]In an earlier post, he wrote, "One man on a bridge is relatively powerless, but the collective withdrawal of our obedience and support is capable of bringing a swift end to the regime and its wars. This nonviolent collective action is our greatest power, and it's the exercise of this power that those who rule fear more than any weapon. For the sake of the world, its children, and our future, let us build this power with each other, together," he wrote.

[00:01:15]This is not the first time Guido has climbed the Frederick Douglass Bridge in protest. In 2022, he spent 24 hours on the bridge to protest the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. He's also a co-founder of Stop AI, a grassroots movement to disrupt artificial intelligence technology.

[00:01:34]After he ended his protest on the bridge, Guido was arrested and charged with unlawful entry, failure to obey an officer, and several other charges.

[00:01:41]Well, Guido Reichstadter joins us now in Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now. Explain what you did.

[00:01:51]Good morning. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:54]It's great to be here.

[00:01:57]Um Yeah, I think like most simply what I did was follow the call of my heart. Um I couldn't stay silent in the face of you know, these ongoing acts of mass murder um by the US government in my name.

[00:02:24]And I felt like I had a that I have a duty to the truth.

[00:02:36]Which is that we have the power to end these wars today.

[00:02:41]We, the people whose in whose name these murders are being committed, we've got the power and the responsibility to non-violently withdraw support, our cooperation from the system, from the regime which is prosecuting these acts of murder in our name.

[00:03:03]And if we do that, we can end them.

[00:03:06]And that's actually, you know, that's our that's our right. It's our power and it's I feel that it's our responsibility.

[00:03:14]Can you, Guido, explain why you came to DC planning to attend a talk by Senator Bernie Sanders on the dangers of AI, of artificial intelli- gence, and yet this protest, though you'd scaled the Frederick Douglass Bridge before, was about the US war on Iran?

[00:03:36]Sure. Um yeah, I've been I've been worried about AI for a long time, since about 25 years, when I first heard about the possibility of building artificial general intelligence or AI systems with, you know, the full range of essentially uh cognitive capabilities of a human brain.

[00:03:56]Uh, it just seemed like it was, you know, 25 years ago everyone thought that might be hundreds of years in the future.

[00:04:01]And, um, since ChatGPT and was rolled out in late 2022, um, and it, you know, brought broadly the deep learning revolution, um, the whole field has really updated quickly, uh, and shortened their timelines for when that might be possible.

[00:04:21]And, uh, you know, the world's leading site most cited living scientists, engineers in the field, academics, all recognize that the development of that technology poses the risk of catastrophic harm, even including, you know, loss of control of advanced systems and potentially human extinction. So, I I I moved to San Francisco in 2024 to begin social mobilization on that. That's actually what brought me to DC on Friday, or on a last Wednesday. Was that a part of your protest? Was it both issues, uh, both AI and the US-Israeli war in Iran?

[00:04:58]Yeah, I mean, absolutely. There's There's So, I I put it that out in the first post that I put on social media when I got on the bridge. That was identified those those There really three. One is the ending the war, removing the Trump regime from power, and, uh, an urgent warning to our society about the potential uh, imminent arrival of a kind of point of no return beyond which will be consigned to these catastrophic effects from AI. And, uh, you know, I care about the society in which I live. I've got two children, um, and I care about the world, and I feel that I have that responsibility to warn the people that I care about about a danger that is recognized by, you know, um, the people who are closest to the development of this technology.

[00:05:48]And uh, it's coming on fast and this is, you know, a lot faster than maybe it's is recognized and I'm it's great that Senator Sanders held that um discussion between academics in China and the United States about the need for global treaty coordinating to to stop the development of really dangerous systems, but we need to treat it like an emergency. Um and that means more than talks and it means action.

[00:06:14]Um you were raised as a evangelical Christian, conservative household.

[00:06:23]Talk about how that informed what you did.

[00:06:30]Sure. Um you know, that's what led me or that that's part of what led me to join the Marines right out of high school and it's also, you know, when I was confronted in in university with the reality of American intervention, the history of American intervention and and power, imperialism in the world. Uh it's what made it also possible, I think, or easier for me to to reject that and say, "No, this isn't right." Um which is what I did in 2003 when, you know, in the run-up to uh the the Iraq War. Well, in in fact, I refused to deploy to the to the Iraq War and resigned, you know. Essentially refused to deploy, said, "I'm I'm not going to I'm not going to train. I'm not going to I'm not going to go fight this war and you can either let me go or you can send me to jail, but um you can't force me to do what's wrong."

[00:07:26]And that's what I went up on the bridge to do as well, to say, you know, to the people of my country, it's like, "What's being done is wrong and we have we have to we have to stand up against it and not accept it.

[00:07:42]And, you know, what if we do that in mass, collectively, we have the power to stop it. What face right now, Guido, in terms of charges, and do you feel that your protest was a success?

[00:07:55]>> [snorts] >> Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, um I have currently uh one federal charge, uh unlawful entry, and a DC charge of uh failure to obey.

[00:08:08]Um and I'm also facing charges in San Francisco for non-violently blocking the doors of OpenAI, one of the leading uh frontier AI companies.

[00:08:19]Um you know, for me the the important thing was doing what's right. Doing what I felt I had to do, and I was able, you know, even just trying to do it is the success, right? Thank thank, you know, thank God I was able to make it to the top and you know, go through that that action. But, doing what's right is the success. Choosing to do what's right and accepting the consequences is the that's the pivotal the pivotal thing. That's the pivotal uh decision that everyone has to make.

[00:08:56]And if we can make that, that's what's that's what's successful. But, broadly I think it has it has um motivated um inspired people even around the world.

[00:09:09]I've gotten messages from, you know, hundreds of folks.

[00:09:14]Finally, Guido, um I asked you about AI and about the war in Iran. Do you connect the two? Um the whole question of the use of AI, uh looking at Michael Claire's comments, artificial intelligence played a major role in selecting targets for attack during Operation Epic Fury, um the US air and missile campaign against Iran that began February 28th.

[00:09:40]Your final comment in these last 30 seconds.

[00:09:44]Yeah, absolutely.

[00:09:46]You know, it was not only used as a as a weapon of war. It is being developed as a weapon of war, but also as a tool for the advancing fascist movement to surveil and control the society, which makes war uh possible and makes resistance more difficult. So, um and we should expect that as AI systems grow in capability in the future if this is not stopped, it will destroy democracy and it will probably destroy the world.

[00:10:15]Um And we've got a responsibility to stop it. If we care about the people we love and the society we live in and our children and their future, uh we've got to make sacrifices and do what's necessary even if it's uncomfortable.

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