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When 71-year-old President Donald Trump accepted 39-year-old French President Emanuel Macron’s invitation to celebrate Bastille Day, the media gasped, portraying Trump as an embarrassment on the world stage. No one in the media liked Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord June 1, causing an uproar at home and abroad. “We’ve never had a president who’s deliberately made decisions the effect of which is to tear down America’s standing in the world, starting with his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement,” former Vice President Al Gore told NBC’s “Today Show.” When not making money hand-over-fist selling media companies, Gore’s been the nation’s most vociferous climate change advocate. Pulling out of the Paris Accord was a slap in the face to Gore and fellow environmentalists, wanting America to lead the world on healing the ailing planet.

Trump knows that the French see the Dec. 12, 2015 Paris Climate Agreement as one of its crowning glories. Pulling out of the agreement June 1 threw many of the European Union countries for a loop, especially because the U.S. has always led the way on reducing air, land and water pollution. With or without the Paris agreement, a majority of U.S. cities-and-states have stricter environmental regulations than most EU countries, giving Trump no qualms about withdrawing from the agreement. Signed by former President Barack Obama in 2015, the agreement limited to U.S. coal industry, something Trump promised to rebuild, even if most of the coal gets shipped overseas. “But I was wrong,” said Gore, after meeting with Trump during the campaign. Gore’s criticism of Trump mirrors the U.S. media, finding fault with practically everything the president says and does.

At a joint press conference with Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Trump hinted he might be open at some point to rejoining the Paris Agreement. “We’ll see what happens,” said Trump, saying that “something could happen” for the U.S. to rejoin the Paris Agreement. Unlike Democrats on Capitol Hill or the press, Macron showed his prodigious diplomatic skills with Trump. “Our occasional disagreement are nothing compared with the immortal bonds of culture, destiny and liberty that unite us . . so strongly united us,” said Macron, prompting Trump to return the compliments. “You have a great leader now, you have a great President, tough, President, he’s not gonna be easy on people who are breaking the laws and show this tremendous violence,” said Trump, proving why, contrary to the U.S. media, he oozes charm when he wants to. Trump enjoyed meeting with Macron and his wife Brigitte.

Ripping Trump for pulling out of the Paris Agreement, Gore has a built-in audience with U.S. media. Gore knows a “thing-or-two” about American media since selling Current TV to Al-Jazeera Jan. 2, 2013 for $500 million. Gore and other outspoken environmentalists like Virgin Atlantic CEOP Sir. Richard Branson, run around on private jets, costing untold amounts of carbon pollution. Both have the politically correct media culture’s ear, slamming Trump for embarrassing the U.S. “Well, the business community does not believe that at all,” responding to Trump’s past remarks that climate change was a hoax. Trump hasn’t taken that position for some time, despite widely repeated in the press. “There are twice as many jobs in the solar industry as the coal industry,” something not surprising since so many coal-fired power plants have been replaced by solar.

Whether Trump signs back onto the Paris Agreement or not, his critics will find anything possible to slam his presidency. Egged on by the press, Gore took every shot possible at Trump over withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. “The climate movement, not least in cities, is right now in the tradition of the all the great moral causes that have improved the circumstances of humanity throughout history,” said Gore. Gore compared the climate movement to “the abolition of slavery,” “women’s suffrage and women’s rights,” “the civil rights movement” and the “anti-Apartheid movement.” Put in that way, Gore delighted implying Trump was today’s Simon Legree, the cruel slave owner in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Trump promised America’s unemployed coal miners that he’d do something to get back their jobs, whether environmentally friendly or not.

When you listen to French President Emanuel Macron, he doesn’t have nearly the contempt for Trump as Gore and the American press. Macron’s right when he said on the big issues, the U.S. and France are joined at the hip. Considering the pressure Macron felt to denounce Trump, he showed he’s well-beyond 39-years where it counts. If there’s anything that can return Trump to the Paris Agreement, it’s the dignified way Macron treated Trump on his Bastille Day visit. American politicians, retired or active, should look at Macron’s example as a way to deal with disagreements. Ripping Trump has be come all too common in the American press, polarizing the nation, practically guaranteeing Washington will get nothing done. Whether Gore thinks climate change is the world’s most pressing issue, Trump’s got a lot on his plate fighting ISIS and preventing war on the Korean Peninsula.