Secret Service Director Sean Curran confirmed his team has smuggled President Trump onto decoy planes before, and said he wishes the tactic had never been made public.

In a 60 Minutes interview preview, Curran described how agents moved the president during a stop in Ankara, Turkey. A catering truck carried Trump and three aides onto a decoy Air Force One while the main aircraft sat on the tarmac.

Curran made plain this was no one-off stunt. The protective detail had run the same play before.

He told the program:

"Look that's not the first time we've done that,"

The director then spelled out the operational cost of the leak. Public reporting, he said, strips the Secret Service of tools it needs to keep the president alive.

"We wish that wasn't reported, because that takes some of our tactics away from being able to do something similar again,"

July Turkey trip put the decoy play on full display

The Ankara transfer happened during a July trip to Turkey. Agents shifted Trump mid-visit to a second aircraft as part of the layered security plan, the Washington Examiner reported.

CBS released the preview clip on Friday. Full interview details remain limited, but Curran’s words leave little doubt: decoy flights are a standing option, not a novelty.

Protective details have long used misdirection, dummy motorcades, fake itineraries, last-minute aircraft swaps, because assassins study patterns. Once a method hits the open press, adversaries adjust.

That reality sits against a backdrop of earlier lapses around Trump’s security, including the lingering questions raised by FBI files on Thomas Crooks after the assassination attempt.

Curran draws a hard line on operational secrecy

Curran did not apologize for the tactic. He apologized that outsiders learned of it. The distinction matters. The Secret Service’s job is to keep the president breathing, not to feed the news cycle.

Trump’s detail has faced constant pressure. A Florida woman recently drove through a checkpoint near Mar-a-Lago claiming she wanted a car wash, another reminder that soft spots still appear.

Decoy aircraft fit the same logic as those perimeter checks: deny the attacker a clean shot or a predictable target. When the method becomes public knowledge, the advantage shrinks.

National security threats keep coming. Trump has pressed hard on terror cases, including moves tied to the Fort Hood attacker nearly 17 years later, underscoring why protective layers cannot afford to leak.

Curran’s candor also highlights a basic trade-off. Television gets a dramatic visual. The president’s detail loses a reusable play. In the business of keeping a high-value target alive, that trade is rarely worth it.

Three aides rode with Trump in the catering truck. Names were not released. Destination details beyond the Ankara tarmac stay thin. What is clear is the director’s priority: keep the methods quiet so they still work next time.

Voters who want a president protected by professionals rather than exposed by publicity should pay attention. Secrecy is not the enemy of accountability here, it is the point of the shield.