Trump decides Paris Climate Deal.
HARLOW: Is he in or is he out? President Trump tweeting that he will decide this week whether or not the U.S. will stay in, or pull out, of the Paris Climate Accord. That agreement cracks down on carbon emissions from coal and other fossil fuels. But from the very start one thing has been very clear, President Trump loves coal.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to stop the regulations that threaten the future and livelihood of our great coal miners. My administration is putting an end to the war on coal. Twenty-seven thousand new mining jobs. Who are the miners here? The miners -- finally, we're taking care of our miners.</s>HARLOW: Quick fact check on that 27,000 mining jobs claim. It's actually 21,000 mining jobs have been added so far under President Trump, not 27,000 as he said. Any job added is a good job, but we're going to get into the future of these jobs, because one of the president's most senior economic aides is questioning whether the future of coal really is the future of America, and so are some big coal company executives. Joining us now is Stephen Moore, our senior economics analyst and former senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign. Thank you for being here, especially on a holiday.</s>STEPHEN MOORE, CNN SENIOR ECONOMICS ANALYST: Hi, Poppy. Happy Memorial Day. I drove by Arlington Cemetery to get here and thousands and thousands of cars. It was very moving. Everybody's going in there to pay homage to our soldiers.</s>HARLOW: It's a beautiful sight.</s>MOORE: Yes.</s>HARLOW: And we're going to hear from the president there in just about an hour. You'll see it live here. So, Stephen, let's jump into your Breitbart piece. Here is the headline, "Liberals Were Wrong, Coal is Back." And you end the piece by saying, "king coal is on its way back, just as Trump promised it would be." But we dug into the numbers. Take a look at them.</s>MOORE: Yes.</s>HARLOW: You know these numbers. U.S. coal jobs, this year, 70,000, 2011, 130,000, the 1920s, 800,000.</s>MOORE: Yes.</s>HARLOW: Those jobs have been cut in half just in the last five, six years.</s>MOORE: Yes.</s>HARLOW: You argue coal plants are reopening. Which ones?</s>MOORE: So, by the way, the reason we lost all those coal jobs was -- the main reason was because of regulations that were put in place under Obama that tried to strangle the coal industry and they did a pretty good job of it.</s>HARLOW: It's largely also because, as you know, natural gas prices --</s>MOORE: Sure.</s>HARLOW: Have just tanked and it made coal less competitive.</s>MOORE: It was -- Poppy, it was a combination of both. No question that low natural gas prices have killed the solar industry, the nuclear industry, has hurt the wind industry and it's hurt -- it hurt the coal industry. But there's no question when you talk to coal executives, they say the knife in their back was some of these regulations that were put in place. We've created -- since Election Day we've created 43,000 mining jobs in this country. That's a -- that's a pretty good number. We have 500 years' worth of coal in this country, Poppy, so we are the Saudi Arabia of coal. I think that no matter what happens in the future, coal is going to have to be part of our energy future because either --</s>HARLOW: So here --</s>MOORE: Let me just make one other point. It --</s>HARLOW: Well, just help me --</s>MOORE: Just one quick point, if I could.</s>HARLOW: I want -- OK. Yes.</s>MOORE: If -- if you, you know, if you -- if you're in to solar or wind power, you need coal to back up wind and solar because, as you know, wind and solar are very intermittent forms of power, so you need a more reliable source to back it up. And coal, look, this country was built on coal. The whole industrial revolution was really created by the advent of the coal industry.</s>HARLOW: So let me -- let me get in here and get your response then to what --</s>MOORE: OK. OK.</s>HARLOW: What Gary Cohn is saying, right, because he's one of the president's top guys.</s>MOORE: Yes. Yes.</s>HARLOW: He's the director of the White House National Economic Council.</s>MOORE: Uh-huh.</s>HARLOW: Here's what he said on Air Force One within the week. He said, "coal doesn't even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock," meaning what is used in the raw materials that's converted into fuel.</s>MOORE: Yes. Sure.</s>HARLOW: He went on to say, natural gas is, quote, "such a cleaner fuel." And he said, if you think about how solar and how much wind power we have in the United States, we can be a manufacturing powerhouse and still be environmentally friendly." That is in stark contrast to what the president himself is saying. So what gives?</s>MOORE: Yes. Look, I believe in a kind of all of the above. I think whatever is the most efficient should be used. There's no question. I mean think about this, Poppy, ten years ago natural gas was like $10 per million cubic feet. Now it's like three. So it's been reduced so much in cost because of fracking. By the way, fracking reduces global warming because you get all of this, you know, this natural gas, which is a very clean, reliable and abundant source of energy. But, look, I just don't think coal is going away unless we put -- put in force --</s>HARLOW: I'm just saying, Gary Cohn certainly sounds like he thinks it is and he's one of the president's top guys.</s>MOORE: Yes, no. Well, here's -- OK, let me make one other point. Nobody knows. If I were sitting in this chair ten years ago, Poppy, and we were talking about the future of energy and I told you that we were going to have the biggest oil and gas boom in this country's history, nobody would have believed that. Nobody saw it happening. But because of shale oil and gas, it happened. My point there is that nobody knows what the future holds. Maybe it will be solar. Maybe it will be natural gas. Maybe it will be nuclear, as making a comeback.</s>HARLOW: Look, it's a fair point. It's -- look at what has happened in North Dakota and the huge boon that we've seen to those economies because of it. However, there was a fascinating piece, I'm sure you read it, in "The Times" over the weekend that talked about these big coal companies in Appalachia turning away from coal. Appalachian Power, the leading utility in West Virginia, shifting more and more to natural gas and renewables. American Electric Power's president, this is a West Virginia company as well, president recalling a conversation with the Democratic governor of West Virginia, saying -- in January this conversation -- the governor said to him, look, I'd like to see you guys build another coal plant. The president of this coal company says, our answer was, we're not going to build another coal plant. Duke Energy, the CEO, Lynn Good --</s>MOORE: Yes.</s>HARLOW: In this interview with "The Wall Street Journal" said --</s>MOORE: Yes.</s>HARLOW: She does foresee a future when zero percent of electricity comes from coal plants going the way they are now. Is it disingenuous to keep promising coal jobs to the American people from this president when even the coal companies are saying that's not really our future?</s>MOORE: Well, wait a minute, I mean I don't think it's disingenuous because we've created 40,000 coal jobs just since the Trump election. So that's a pretty good -- and we've -- we recovered almost a third of the jobs that were lost under Obama in -- in less than four or five months. But what you're</s>HARLOW: So, Stephen Moore --</s>MOORE: Yes.</s>HARLOW: Stephen, is this in-depth Columbia University study, that I know you read, that just came out, is it wrong then when it concludes, quote, "Trump's efforts to roll back environmental regulations will not materially improve economic conditions in America's coal communities," are they just wrong?</s>MOORE: That's false. That's false. I mean, look, where did the 40,000 jobs come from? Just -- it just --</s>HARLOW: They're not all coal -- they're not all coal jobs.</s>MOORE: Well, but they're mining jobs. The war against mining.</s>HARLOW: Right.</s>MOORE: And, look, I don't think we -- any of us know the future. But one -- one last parting comment. We still get today, Poppy, almost 35 percent of our electricity from coal. So it's still the second -- number two player in energy production in this country behind natural gas.</s>HARLOW: Yes, it is way down. But I love having you on to debate these things and I'm getting the wrap in the control room. We've got to go. You'll be back, Stephen Moore.</s>MOORE: Have a great weekend.</s>HARLOW: Thank you.</s>MOORE: Yes, take care.</s>HARLOW: America remembering it's fallen heroes today on this Memorial Day, the men and the women who have given their life in service to this nation. The president is headed to Arlington National Cemetery this morning. We will bring you his remarks live.