CNN journalist leaves Roy Moore's spokesperson absolutely speechless with a Bible fact

Now that Roy Moore has been handed an embarrassing defeat in the Senate race, Alabamians​ can sit back for a moment, relax and catch their collective breath - they can also watch coverage they may have missed during the final moments of frantic campaigning.

For example, some might have missed CNN journalist Jake Tapper leaving Roy Moore's spokesperson Ted Crockett absolutely speechless after telling him that you don't have to be sworn into office on a Christian Bible.

Miles Davis once said that the beauty of jazz is "not the notes you play, [but] the notes you don't play". So if we conclude from Miles that beauty comes in the absence of sound, the 10-or-so seconds when Crockett sits silent and open-mouthed, after learning you can be sworn into office using the Quran or the Hebrew Bible, might be the most beautiful example of jazz ever recorded.

The exchange begins with Tapper asking Crockett why his client doesn't believe a Muslim should be allowed to join the United States Congress.

"Because you have to swear on the Bible," replies Crockett. "I had to do it and I'm an elected official - three terms. You have to swear on a Bible to be an elected official in the United States of America. [Roy Moore] alleges that a Muslim cannot do that ethically - swearing on the Bible."

Tapper points out that you don't have to swear on the Bible and that you can "swear on anything, really".

"Oh no," Crockett says, rather incredulously, "I swore on the Bible, I've done it three times."

And then Tapper delivers his killer blow.

I'm sure you have. I'm sure you've picked a Bible. But the law is not that you have to swear on a Christian Bible. That is not the law.

What follows is an extended period of awkward silence.

Tapper knows there's nothing worse than dead air though, and tries to urge his interviewee along, prompting him with: "You don't know that?"

After what seems like another lifetime of silence, Crockett finally comes to his senses and says:

I know that Donald Trump did it when we made him president.

The winner of the Senate race was of course Doug Jones, who prior to the election made his name prosecuting two former KKK members who bombed a black church. He is the first Democrat to win such a seat in Alabama for 25 years.

Elsewhere in Tapper's interview with the spokesperson, Crockett said that Moore "probably" thinks that homosexuality should be illegal.

More: NY Daily News hits out at Moore: 'Screw you and horse you rode in on'.

More: 'Mass panic' on London train as man starts reciting the Bible.