Sen. Carper critical of Trump after his first week

President Trump is already under fire from top democrats after only his first week in office, one of them being Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del) who spoke out against several of the president's moves, including what has been referred to as Trump's gag order on EPA employees.

"I think he's trying to scare and intimidate employees and frankly in other departments  as well," Carper said.

The senator added that employees need to be able to speak out and not be in fear of losing their job.

"Sometimes we have whistle blowers in federal agencies who are blowing the whistle on bad conduct and wasteful conduct and we have laws in place to protect them so they don't lose their jobs if they're telling the truth the rest of us need to hear," Carper said.

Truths, Carper said, the current administration has had trouble admitting. Carper critical of the way the president has handled certain affairs such as Trump's allegation that media unfairly reported the amount of people that attended his inauguration.

"There are no such thing as  fake news, the idea of what is is it, not artificial fact – the idea of alternative facts that's, that's malarkey," Carper said.

Carper was also critical of Trump's pick to head the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. Carper said Pruitt "was not fit" to head the agency. Carper calling into question Pruitt's first actions as Attorney General.

"One of the first things he did was he closed down the environmental protection unit within the Oklahoma attorney generals office and since then eh's raised millions, a lot from fossil fuel industry, a lot of dark money we don't where it came from , millions of dollars to sue the EPA. That doesn't sound to me like somebody who's going to come in and be a protector of our clean air, clean water and our public health and protect us from sea level rise," Carper said.

Opponents of Pruitt's nomination will be fighting an uphill battle with a Republican controlled senate. 

Although Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) won't have a vote in the matter, he weighed in Friday about his support for Pruitt.  

"Attorney General Pruitt, I think reflects the values of the first congressional district of Maryland, again a strong agricultural district where they've seen the EPA run rough over them over the past 8 years," Harris said.

A date for a vote on Pruitt's confirmation has not yet been set.