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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
MisInfoNation: The Trump Faithful. Aired 10-10:35p ET
Aired August 24, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:42]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to "The Whole Story." I'm Anderson Cooper. We are less than seven months away from the next presidential election. But even now, four years after Joe Biden won, there are a number of Donald Trump supporters who dispute those results. And that's not all. They dispute the January 6th attack was an insurrection. They dispute the idea of separation of church and state in America. Some even dispute that the last Super Bowl was played honestly, and they blame Taylor Swift for rigging the outcome.
Over the next hour, CNN's Donie O'Sullivan dives deep into the undercurrent of viral misinformation by speaking directly to those who believe in conspiracies and those who are trying to battle them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This event today is at a church, but --
(LAUGHTER)
-- not entirely clear what kind of church it really is. One of the guest speakers there today is a man by the name of Derrick Evans. He spent three months in prison for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. And now, he's running for Congress.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(APPLAUSE)
UNKNOWN: That was excellent. Thank you so very much. Thank you. We are honored to have with us today a gentleman that has extremely interesting stories. Derek Evans is a J6 survivor, and he's running for Congress as well. So, let's give him a warm welcome.
(APPLAUSE)
DERRICK EVANS, REPUBLICAN U.S. HOUSE PRIMARY CANDIDATE: Awesome. Thank you, guys, for coming out here today. I really appreciate it. I spent eight days in solitary confinement because I refused the COVID vaccine while they were holding me hostage.
(APPLAUSE)
I'm calling for a prisoner exchange. We need to release the January 6th political prisoners and lock up the criminal who stole the election in the Democrats (ph).
(APPLAUSE)
O'SULLIVAN: National media headlines about you is January 6th insurrectionist, now he's running for Congress. What do you want people to know about you beyond that big headline?
EVANS: Well, first of all, I'm a husband and I'm a father, I've got four beautiful children, I love my family very much, I love my community, I love my country, and I think it's despicable that, you know, the media, particularly CNN, has helped paint this false narrative of insurrection.
O'SULLIVAN: How would you characterize what happened on January 6th?
EVANS: January 6th was the most patriotic day of my life.
UNKNOWN: Trump! Woo!
UNKNOWN: We are not putting up with this tyrannical rule!
UNKNOWN: Ahh!
EVANS: I did nothing wrong that day. We have natural God-given rights in this country. I know a lot of people out there, a lot of your viewers, probably a lot of good people, but they believe that our rights come from the government. That's simply not true. Our rights come from God.
UNKNOWN: Calm down, guys. Calm down in the back.
EVANS: I'm heard reminding people to be peaceful and non-violent and non-destructive.
UNKNOWN: We're him! We're him! Derek Evans is in the Capitol! No vandalizing property!
EVANS: I did more to control the crowd than the police did that day, and I'm the one that goes to prison.
O'SULLIVAN: So, why were you sent to prison?
EVANS: Because this is a political charge right now. I'm a political prisoner. All these people in prison are now political prisoners.
O'SULLIVAN: You did decide to plead guilty.
EVANS: Yeah.
O'SULLIVAN: Was that just out of practicality?
EVANS: Well, I mean, when you're facing 24 years in prison, what options do you really have? I was ready to move on with my life. And the Constitution was written for one reason, one reason only. It was written to prevent the government from infringing on our natural God- given rights. What I was doing that day was not only protected by the Constitution, it was protected by those natural God-given rights of free speech.
O'SULLIVAN: But also, of course, there's a separation between church and state.
EVANS: No, there's not. There's no separation of church and state. That's another lie that has been portrayed by the left. There's no separation of church and state. There's not one, ever.
[22:05:07]
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Invoking religion to promote our politics and justify our actions is nothing new. Indeed, before he was running for Congress, Derrick made a name for himself harassing women outside abortion clinics.
UNKNOWN: I told you we're broken (ph), I was getting used to it.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But what was happening here?
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I've got two pronouns, Trump won.
(APPLAUSE)
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In this church, it felt different.
ANN VANDERSTEEL, PODCAST HOST: All right, well, I guess we got the fake news here. You might as well get the real news because --
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Here, conspiracy theories reign supreme.
VANDERSTEEL: And I have a very high-level source who contacted me the other day and said, Ann, you need to get this out, because this is the playbook. You look at Oklahoma, you look at 9/11, and you realize the reason planes flew into buildings and bombs have gone off in certain places is because they're destroying evidence.
O'SULLIVAN: You've been labeled an extremist.
EVANS: Yeah. falsely, yeah.
O'SULLIVAN: You would say falsely?
EVANS: Yeah.
O'SULLIVAN: The stuff you posted on Christmas Day.
EVANS: What about it?
O'SULLIVAN: The Democrats being lynched. You probably shouldn't have done that, should you?
EVANS: I want to see Fauci in handcuffs. I want to see Mayorkas in handcuffs. I want to see them standing right now in front of a jury shackled. O'SULLIVAN: You want to see them hung.
EVANS: I want to see them in front of a jury shackled in a military tribunal, and whatever the jury decides, we accept that outcome.
Keep in mind that this is spiritual warfare. This is a battle of good versus evil right now.
TAYLOR GREENE: You're the deplorables. The second-class citizens. The supposed to not have freedom of speech.
VANDERSTEEL: The DOD, by the way, is behind the development of the COVID shots, behind the development of this horrific killing machine.
JEREMY BROWN, FORMER GREEN BERET, MEMBER OF OATH KEEPERS: Everybody have a candle? All right, welcome. We had a good day, huh?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Later that evening, some of the congregation gathered nearby at a sister church.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is a free call from --
BROWN: Jeremy.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): An incarcerated individual at Citrus County, Florida.
BROWN: For the last 826 days, I have served as a political prisoner of war in my home country.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Jeremy Brown was a member of the Oath Keepers militia and was seen outside the Capitol on January 6th. He called into the church and began preaching conspiracy theories that Trump supporters weren't really responsible for the attack.
BROWN: January 6th, 2021 was a clandestine, compartmentalized, unconventional warfare operation. Planned, coordinated, and executed by compromised elements within the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and federal law enforcement.
O'SULLIVAN: Wow, this is gorgeous. How are you?
RACHEL POWELL, CONVICTED JANUARY 6TH RIOTER: Good.
O'SULLIVAN: Nice to meet you.
POWELL: You too, come on in.
O'SULLIVAN: Thanks so much for having us.
POWELL: Yes.
My name is Rachel Powell. And I've had eight kids. So, I've been busy.
(LAUGHTER)
I have my seventh grandchild coming up to be born this year.
O'SULLIVAN: This is your last weekend before you go in to prison for the next four or five years. How have you been spending the weekend?
POWELL: I know it's not a funeral procession, but it kind of reminds me of that. My friends, my family, they've been coming in and just been really busy, which is good, because when it gets -- when it gets quiet for a minute, that's when the emotions set in.
O'SULLIVAN: Do you remember where you were when you heard that Biden had won the election?
POWELL: I do, I was at my house, I got a phone call saying that Biden won, and I was like, what?
O'SULLIVAN: You couldn't believe it?
POWELL: No, absolutely, and people around me couldn't believe it either.
O'SULLIVAN: You still can't believe it?
POWELL: I still can't believe it.
O'SULLIVAN: Why did you decide to go to D.C. on January 6th?
POWELL: Well, how often does a president ask you to come to a rally? It doesn't happen.
O'SULLIVAN: At some point, this goes from peaceful protest to you having an ice axe in your hand.
POWELL: Uh-hmm.
O'SULLIVAN: Did somebody give you the ice axe?
POWELL: Yeah.
O'SULLIVAN: Who?
POWELL: I don't know.
O'SULLIVAN: You don't remember.
You'd admit this is a bad look, obviously.
POWELL: Oh, totally. You know how dumb I feel when I look at this picture? Like, oh, my goodness. Like --
O'SULLIVAN: You had an axe in your hand. You broke a window. You were shouting over a bullhorn --
POWELL: Uh-hmm.
O'SULLIVAN: -- to tell people to take the building.
POWELL: Yep.
O'SULLIVAN: Why should people believe that you weren't trying to overturn the election, do something illegal, and commit insurrection?
[22:10:00]
POWELL: It's ridiculous. If we wanted, if we went there with a plan to take that building with as many people as were there and we were coordinated, we'd have been in there in like 30 seconds.
O'SULLIVAN: Have you ever had a moment where you're like, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Biden actually won the election. Maybe I'm the conspiracy theorist.
POWELL: No, not at all. Nope.
O'SULLIVAN: So, in a few days, you're going to be reporting to federal prison.
POWELL: Right.
O'SULLIVAN: How have you talked about that to your children?
POWELL: Yeah. I'm sorry. It's like my last weekend before I go in. But I love my children so much. And so, it's like the last thing that they can take from me. And that'll be the hard part. And I don't deserve this. And my kids don't deserve it. Like, have we not been through enough? Like, that's the last thing that we have to lose is each other.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): It had been just three years since the Capitol attack. A day that cost lives --
UNKNOWN: Let's go!
O'SULLIVAN: -- and ruined lives. But the truth of what happened that day has been so twisted.
TUCKER CARLSON, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER FOX NEWS HOST: Lies about January 6th have been relentless. Almost like it was a coordinated operation.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): So warped --
UNKNOWN: Twenty confirmed incidents. The dozens of feds, FBI agents, and state operatives who infiltrated the Trump crowds on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol. We have total on top of all the other proof, more proof.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): -- that those who took part in the attack are being lauded in churches.
EVANS: We talk about all the corruption that happened surrounding January 6th, the feds' direction, because we know that the federal government was involved.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And the man who incited it all, he's still the hero.
POWELL: So, this hat says, Rachel, we love you. Trump.
O'SULLIVAN: Are you hoping Trump will pardon you?
POWELL: I know he'll pardon me. That's not a hope. I know that Trump will pardon me.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Rachel still had faith in Trump, even faith in the election lies that were sending her to prison. But how alive are these lies among the wider Trump base? I went to Vegas to find out.
Do I put it all on red or all on black tonight?
UNKNOWN: I put it on 21.
O'SULLIVAN: Twenty-one?
UNKNOWN: Twenty-one.
O'SULLIVAN: Okay.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNKNOWN: Because I'm the only person in history to win cars in both the Wheel of Fortune and the Price is Right.
O'SULLIVAN: I came over to you because I saw your shirt.
UNKNOWN: Uh-hmm.
[20:15:05]
O'SULLIVAN: That's Trump being arraigned.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
UNKNOWN: We should all be united to stand with this man.
UNKNOWN: I was better off four years ago.
UNKNOWN: I believe Trump is the only hope right now on the earth.
O'SULLIVAN: What happens if Trump loses?
UNKNOWN: We're in a whole lot of trouble.
UNKNOWN: All right.
DEEJON LACKEY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I feel like the mainstream media makes me feel like my views are -- I'm wrong for having my views. I was a lifelong Democrat until 2019.
O'SULLIVAN: Until 2019?
LACKEY: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: What changed?
LACKEY: Donald Trump.
O'SULLIVAN: CNN.
JOE BLACK, TRUMP SUPPORTER: That's what we thought.
O'SULLIVAN: Yeah.
BLACK: Are you guys going to cover it like accurately?
O'SULLIVAN: You don't think it's accurate?
BLACK: Not really. I think you guys do soundbites.
O'SULLIVAN: Where do you get most of your news and information out?
BLACK: I go to multiple different sources like Telegram. Um, I try to stay off the main sites like Facebook and stuff like that. It's all got algorithms and stuff like that that are designed to hide your posts.
O'SULLIVAN: And you get fact-checked on Facebook?
BLACK: Well, fact-checked by who? You know, some guy that's 30 years old living in his ma's basement.
UNKNOWN: I would love to speak to you.
O'SULLIVAN: All right.
UNKNOWN: You don't have to put it on the camera if you don't want to.
O'SULLIVAN: Well, sure, we might as well put it on camera.
The job of the journalist is to ask the questions, allow the person to speak, and just report the facts, what was spoken. Would you like for me to pull up the definition of journalist?
O'SULLIVAN: That's okay, but thank you, Julianne (ph).
UNKNOWN: Okay.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): I met Julianne (ph), a die-hard Trump supporter from Texas, who was in Vegas for a gun show.
UNKNOWN: I have a God-given right to speak my own truth.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): She still believes the 2020 election was stolen.
But there are facts, right? UNKNOWN: The facts have shown that the election was stolen. Whether you're willing to look at that and accept that and really show what's going on, that's your issue, not ours. We want the God-given freedom that our Constitution and our Bill of Rights is based on.
O'SULLIVAN: God-given constitutional rights?
UNKNOWN: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: They're two different things, right?
UNKNOWN: No, sir, they're not. Read, R-E-A-D, the Constitution. Read it out loud to yourself --
O'SULLIVAN: U-huh.
UNKNOWN: -- so that you hear what the words of the Constitution say.
O'SULLIVAN: God isn't mentioned in the Constitution.
UNKNOWN: Sir, you had to learn the Constitution to become a U.S. citizen.
O'SULLIVAN: No, I didn't.
UNKNOWN: You didn't?
O'SULLIVAN: No.
UNKNOWN: You did not have to learn the Constitution or the Bill of Rights to become a U.S. citizen.
O'SULLIVAN: I was born a U.S. citizen. My mom is American. But this isn't about me.
UNKNOWN: You just made a statement. You tried to make what you're considering is a factual statement that God is not talked about.
O'SULLIVAN: In the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
UNKNOWN: Okay. Okay. Hold on.
O'SULLIVAN: I could pull it up on my phone, too, if we could do that.
UNKNOWN: Okay. Sure. Go ahead. I'm trying to -- I might have just gotten something wrong, which they'll probably use that to --
O'SULLIVAN: Okay, you have the Constitution --
UNKNOWN: Let me say this, and this is probably why I get it. In the United States, the federal Constitution does not make a reference to God as such, although it uses the formula, the year of our Lord, which is capitalized in Article 7. There's only one Lord, capitalized L-O-R- D. So, there is a reference to God in our Constitution and in our Bill of Rights.
O'SULLIVAN: There's one.
UNKNOWN: In Article 7. In Article 7, go read it.
O'SULLIVAN: One reference that states the date.
UNKNOWN: One reference is enough. It refers to the year of the Lord, capital L-O-R-D. There's only one Lord.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Religion has always played a role in American politics.
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Pope Pius XII said, into the hands of America, God has placed an afflicted mankind.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: (SINGING).
O'SULLIVAN (VOICE-OVER): But what's happening now is different.
UNKNOWN: Jesus Christ, we invoke your name! Amen!
UNKNOWN: I'm to the place right now, if you vote Democrat, I don't even want you around this church. You can get out. You can get out, you demon. You can get out, you baby butchering election thief. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation.
MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR OF THE UNITED STATES: We are going to have one nation under God and one religion under God.
REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): I'm tired of this separation of church and state junk.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): It has a name. It's called Christian nationalism.
[22:20:03]
TAYLOR GREENE: I say it proudly. We should be Christian nationalists.
REV. DENNIS JACOBSEN, FOUNDING MEMBER, MILWAUKEE INNER-CITY CONGREGATIONS ALLIED FOR HOPE: January 6th, crosses everywhere, huge poster of a white Jesus with a "Make America Great Again" red hat on. As a Christian, it just grabbed my guts and got me furious.
UNKNOWN: We're going to reclaim America for Christ, retake America for Christians.
UNKNOWN: So, we hold up President Trump before the creator of the universe.
UNKNOWN: This is an explicitly Christian country.
UNKNOWN: The Bible says those that truly follow Jesus Christ take it by force.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This perversion of patriotism and faith has pastors across the country worried that their flocks are being led astray.
PASTOR CALEB CAMPBELL, DESERT SPRINGS BIBLE CHURH: I see in American Christian nationalism, toxic anxiety and rage. And I see it tearing families apart.
UNKNOWN: Christian nationalism is not Christian at all.
CAMPBELL: I started getting called names by people that I loved and had known for over a decade. I was called a fascist, a communist, and that I had a Luciferian spirit of fear.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:26:04]
UNKNOWN: There is a demonic hedge of protection around Joe Biden.
UNKNOWN: If this nation is going to succeed, they better put Christians into office. You vote for the person who holds closest to a biblical worldview value.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): They preach Christian nationalism and they pray for Trump. But this pastor says they are leading their flocks in a dangerous direction.
CAMPBELL: And so, Father, we give you this time, as we think about how we manage our common life together, as we think about government and politics.
UNKNOWN: Our concern today is political extremism on the right side of American politics.
UNKNOWN: So that's what we have tried to do.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This event today is organized in a response to Christian nationalism.
CAMPBELL: We've recognized that there's a deficiency in training pastors to how to actually engage scripture and then apply that into the political life.
O'SULLIVAN: Hmm.
UNKNOWN: And so, it is an answer to what we saw as an aberration from the teachings of Jesus, which is American Christian nationalism.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Pastor Caleb Campbell knows a lot about extremism. He used to be a neo-Nazi skinhead who played the drums.
CAMPBELL: When I was a teenager, I fell in with a group of neo-Nazi skinheads and did that. Kind of after high school, we had a woman from the church was dialing drummers and called me and said, can you come play at the church?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): He began playing here at the Desert Springs Bible Church. Twenty-three years later, he's still here. It's in this room where you had your awakening?
CAMPBELL: Yeah. Ours is traditionally called like a conversion experience. And I was baptized in this room. It has been quite a ride. I definitely didn't expect to be a pastor, much less a pastor in church like this.
O'SULLIVAN: Do you know how many times God is mentioned in this?
CAMPBELL: In the Constitution? Zero.
O'SULLIVAN: Yeah. It gets mentioned once I think, our Lord, just in terms of in the year of our Lord.
CAMPBELL: Yes. Evangelical Christians of which I am one, I'm a theological evangelical, they are generally operating under the assumption that the Christian God is all over the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution. And then I'll just invite them to read it. Let's read it together and let's just highlight all the spaces that anything uniquely Christian shows up, and you'll notice that we have not had to pull out our highlighter. There are certainly ideas that have been shaped throughout human history by the Christian tradition.
It is power that dominates --
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Pastor Caleb is not alone in his fight against Christian nationalism. In Milwaukee, where Trump will officially be declared the Republican candidate at the RNC this summer, pastors Jackson, Jacobsen and Shaw are also sounding the alarm.
JACOBSEN: Can you really with a straight face look at life, teachings, way and death of Jesus and line that up with the correlates of Christian nationalism, anti-Muslim, racist, anti-immigrant? I mean, it just doesn't work.
O'SULLIVAN: What I'll hear at events is the founding fathers were Christian. America was built off Christian values. Therefore, this is a Christian country and we should have Christian government.
REV. RICHARD SHAW, MILWAUKEE INNER-CITY CONGREGATIONS ALLIED FOR HOPE: Why then is Jesus nor Christianity mentioned in the Constitution? Then why would you even place in there a freedom of religion? So, to me, the argument is silly, is nonsense. I'm going to really have a problem with Christianity if you say that it was found off of Christian values with the things that took place right here on American soil. What was done to the Native Americans' land, what was done to my people and others?
O'SULLIVAN: Dennis, I can sense that you're particularly --
(LAUGHTER)
Yeah. I mean, this really gets to you.
[22:30:03]
JACOBSEN: Yes, it does. I've had it up to here with distortion of one of the most astonishing revolutionaries into a white Jesus wearing a red MAGA hat. It's just unbelievable to me. I think one reason that younger people are walking right past the door to church is because of the idiocy they see in this movement.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): So, a lot of Americans believe that God views America as special.
CAMPBELL: We tell ourselves that. That's part of how we have justified things like warfare.
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This crusade, this war on terrorism, it's going to take a while.
CAMPBELL: We've said we're the good. They're the evil. So, God has this relationship with us.
REAGAN: The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I thought a bit of the shining city upon a hill.
CAMPBELL: Reagan invoked it that America's the city on a hill. Well, that's Jerusalem. That's biblical language use of Jerusalem.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In 2020, Pastor Campbell began losing congregants.
CAMPBELL: So, as an evangelical preacher, I'll alliterate. It was Floyd, Fauci, and the federal election.
O'SULLIVAN: So, what were they angry about?
CAMPBELL: Oh, the way that we navigated a global pandemic. Our response to George Floyd and his murder, just the fact that we called it murder was met with resistance, then the federal election came and I was accused of advocating for the blue team because I didn't, from the stage, advocate for the red team. I don't tell people how I vote, and by taking that posture is viewed as a betrayal of what God had chosen.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Some of his congregants left for Dream City Church, a place steeped in Christian nationalism.
UNKNOWN: It is the duty of our Christian nation to select to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A very special thank you to the Dream City Church for hosting us.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Pastor Caleb has spent months attending Christian nationalist events, something he documents in his book "Disarming Leviathan." CAMPBELL: Most of the folks that I've met, like on the ground, I'm not talking about the leaders and the purveyors of American Christian nationalism, they truly believe that this is what God wants. I honor their patriotism. I share much of their sentiments. But they are afraid. They're anxious about being erased. I think at the heart of this movement is the anxiety of ethnic erasure, that our way of being in the world is under imminent threat.
O'SULLIVAN: Do you see similarities there in what you are looking for?
CAMPBELL: Yeah. It's what all of us are looking for. We're made as communal creatures. We're made for each other. So, for me, as an angry, rage-filled teenager, I found those things in this community. In American Christian nationalist circles, many people are finding safety, belonging, and purpose. The problem is that you're not actually truly safe. If you ask a critical question in a Christian nationalist circle, you will be tossed out. You'll be viewed as a, you know, there's one of the phrases, a RINO, a Republican in name only.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But this isn't just about Christians and churches. It's about how distrust and fear is affecting our understanding of reality.
BLACK: I think you guys do sound bites.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): My conversation with Joe back in Vegas had been brief, but he had given me his number to stay in touch.
(RINGING)
BLACK (voice-over): Hello.
O'SULLIVAN: Hey, Joe, how are you doing? I thought our conversation the other day was very interesting.
BLACK: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: So, I wanted to see if you'd be open to chatting about that a bit further. Maybe I'd come to Colorado to visit you.
BLACK: Sure. Come on down.
O'SULLIVAN: Let's go to Colorado then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:39:10]
(BREAKING NEWS)
