CNBC's Tania Bryer interviewed Kerry, also a former senator from Massachusetts, for a CNBC-sponsored panel called "The Future of Our Oceans." Kerry focused on climate change in a highlight video from the panel posted by CNBC, in which he blasted Trump for pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement he helped negotiate during the Obama administration.
When he was pressed on what advice he would give Trump, Kerry questioned the premise that Trump would ever listen to him.
"I can’t play that," Kerry said, stuttering. "He doesn't take any of this seriously, he doesn’t have an ability to have that kind of conversation."
"What would your message be?" Bryer asked.
"Resign," he replied after stammering for a moment. The audience applauded loudly.
Beforehand, Kerry argued that the meaninglessness of the climate accords was what made Trump foolish to pull out. Kerry explained the agreement did not impose any actual burden on the United States, and therefore Trump could have stayed in without any trouble. However, Kerry also agreed that the future of the world was hanging in the balance.
"When the president says it puts a burden on us‐no. We are assuming a de minimis level of what we ought to be doing, and the burden that is being put on the people of the world as well as the United States is the burden of ignorance to science," he said.