Former Vice President Al Gore Albert (Al) Arnold GoreGallup: 61 percent support abolishing the Electoral College Business groups start gaming out a Biden administration Cruz says Senate Republicans likely have votes to confirm Trump Supreme Court nominee MORE said Sunday that the country can't build a successful economy by "promising to recreate the 19th century."

During an interview on NBC's "Meet The Press," Gore was asked what he would tell a coal community in West Virginia.

"Well the loss of jobs in the coal industry started with the mechanization of the coal industry. Natural gas started displacing coal in the fossil fuel sector," Gore said.

ADVERTISEMENT

"And promising to recreate the 19th century is not a visionary strategy for a successful 21st-century strategy."

Gore's comments come after President Trump last week announced his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement.

Trump cast his decision as one that puts the United States first, a central theme of his presidential campaign.

“The Paris climate accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production,” Trump said last week.