A Senate Democrat says the Trump administration can’t keep its story straight — and that the contradictions are coming from inside the briefing room.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin blasted the administration’s classified briefing on recent U.S. strikes against alleged drug boats, saying top officials undercut the White House’s public narrative and raised serious questions about leadership and intent.

Speaking Wednesday on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, the Michigan Democrat said she walked away from Tuesday’s closed-door Senate Foreign Relations Committee briefing with little confidence in the administration’s explanation.

“I don’t trust their leadership,” Slotkin said flatly.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the classified session, but according to Slotkin, their testimony contradicted key claims President Donald Trump has used to justify the strikes.

Most notably, Slotkin said senators were told the targeted boats were likely headed to Europe — not the United States — despite repeated public statements from the administration framing the operations as a direct defense of Americans.

Even more striking, she said officials acknowledged the vessels were likely carrying cocaine, not fentanyl, undermining Trump’s recent declaration that fentanyl is a “weapon of mass destruction” requiring extraordinary military action.

“Literally, as Mr. Rubio and Secretary Hegseth are telling us, the only thing they’re doing is going after these boats because they’re carrying drugs,” Slotkin said.

She contrasted that explanation with comments attributed to the president’s chief of staff in a Vanity Fair report, which suggested the real objective was political — not narcotics.

“At the same time,” Slotkin said, “we have the chief of staff to the president talking about, ‘The whole point is just to get Maduro out.’ That’s regime change.”

The clash between the classified briefing and the administration’s public messaging, Slotkin said, points to deeper dysfunction.

“Get your story straight before you come and brief the Senate,” she said. “And again, it’s the leadership I have concerns about.”

The Trump administration has defended the strikes as necessary to combat transnational drug trafficking and protect U.S. national security. But Slotkin’s comments suggest lawmakers are being told something far less dramatic behind closed doors — and something far less unified.

The senator did not accuse Hegseth or Rubio of misleading Congress directly, but her remarks painted a picture of an administration advancing shifting justifications depending on the audience.

For critics, the episode raises familiar questions: Are these strikes about drugs, deterrence, domestic politics — or a proxy battle aimed at destabilizing Venezuela’s government?

For Slotkin, the answer is less important than the process.

When classified briefings contradict public rhetoric, she warned, credibility collapses — and with it, trust in the people steering American military power.

“You can’t run national security on mixed messages,” she said.