Philip Rucker is Senior Vice President of Editorial Strategy and News for CNN. In this role, Rucker oversees U.S. news operations across platforms and is responsible for helping set CNN’s daily global news agenda and shape its editorial vision worldwide.

Rucker brings his decades of newsroom experience to bear on CNN’s core mission – breaking news and telling urgent, distinctive stories on its TV, digital and streaming platforms. Reporting to the Executive Editor, he partners with senior leaders across the organization to transform how CNN’s journalists cover the world and how their journalism engages audiences.

A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and bestselling author, Rucker joined CNN in February 2025 from The Washington Post, where he served as National Editor. He led a staff of 150 journalists covering the White House, Congress, politics, national security, criminal justice, the Supreme Court, U.S. domestic news, health, education, science, race, immigration and more.

Rucker previously served as The Washington Post’s Deputy National Editor, Senior Washington Correspondent and White House Bureau Chief, leading award-winning coverage of President Donald Trump’s first term. He also covered the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, the Obama White House and Congress, as well as national and local news. In nearly 20 years at The Post, he reported from all 50 states and more than two dozen countries.

Rucker has played a critical role on teams that have won four Pulitzer Prizes. Under his leadership, The Post won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News for coverage of the assassination attempt on Trump and the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for the “American Icon” series examining the AR-15. His reporting and writing was integral to The Post winning the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for coverage of Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.

Rucker also has received the George Polk Award, the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Aldo Beckman Award for overall excellence in White House coverage and the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for distinguished reporting on the presidency.

Rucker co-authored, with Carol Leonnig, two No. 1 New York Times bestselling books about the Trump presidency: “A Very Stable Genius” in 2020 and “I Alone Can Fix It” in 2021.

Rucker graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in history and is based in Washington, DC.