In an interview with a Birmingham radio program earlier this month, a spokesman for Roy Moore revealed that evangelist Franklin Graham called Moore before he went on Sean Hannity’s program to defend himself against sexual misconduct accusations, a conversation that reportedly put Moore on “cloud nine.”

In a November 14 interview with “Priority Talk Radio,” Moore surrogate Stan Cooke insisted that the allegations that Moore made sexual advances on teenage girls when he was in his 30s “are just false” and that he had never even dated teenagers. When host Greg Davis asked Cooke about Moore’s less than decisive denials in the Hannity interview, Cooke changed the subject to the call with Franklin Graham, who he said had spoken with Moore about the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. In Genesis, Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses Joseph of attempting to rape her after he refuses her advances.

“Right before the Sean Hannity interview,” Cooke said, “he had had a phone call from Franklin Graham, and [it was a] very encouraging phone call, Franklin Graham had called him to lift him up, encourage him. They talked about Joseph in the Old Testament, how he was accused by Potiphar’s wife, a story that’s familiar to all Christians. And so he was on cloud nine that Franklin Graham had called him.”

Cooke added that the accusations “hurt” Moore “greatly.”

In an interview with the Charlotte Observer yesterday, Graham said he didn’t know if he believes Moore’s accusers: “I don’t know. I don’t know these women. All I know is he’s been [in] public service all of these years – 40 years – and a month before the election these women [have come forward]. And I talked to Roy Moore, I asked him. He said ‘I don’t even know them.’ So, I don’t know.”