In late August 1992, Randy Weaver and his family were refusing to come down from the remote Idaho mountaintop where they lived.

Weaver, a fugitive on a federal firearms charge, has been hold up in a cabin near Naples for more than a year.

The government thought Randy Weaver was a dangerous, possibly violent extremist.

Randy and his wife Vicky thought the government

was an agent of Satan on earth. When it was all over, three people were dead, and the government

had spent millions of dollars to catch one man. We'll find out why the siege at Ruby Ridge

unfolded the way it did, and think about some of the questions it raises.

What should we do about white supremacists? Why has the story of Ruby Ridge become an enduring

myth for the far right? And whose fault was it anyway?

Subscribe to Standoff, what happened at Ruby Ridge in Apple Podcasts

or wherever you listen.

Tom, how long have you been covering the Pentagon?

28 years this year.

Tom Bowman covers the Pentagon for NPR.

It's a long time.

Have you ever seen a Secretary of Defense like Pete Heggseth?

I never have.

Tom has a lot to say about Pete Heggseth.

But to start, it's worth considering the aesthetics of the Secretary of Defense. Hegeseth likes to play up the fact that he has metaphorical dust on his boots.

That means he's served as a soldier.

These days, he tends to emphasize that by working out with enlisted men, often bringing a photographer

along to take a few pictures. In short, he wears his title like a costume. Even before he

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