Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. She joined the team during an election year that included President Joe Biden ending his reelection bid, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for president and two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump.

While on the beat, she delivered exclusives including an analysis showing that during the 2024 election year, the largest rent increases were occurring in swing state markets and how the affordability crisis could spell trouble for Biden’s reelection bid. She also broke news documenting the early misgivings among progressive Biden donors about his stance on the war in Gaza by reporting that many of them had boycotted a marquee Biden fundraiser featuring Presidents Biden, Clinton and Obama at Radio City Music Hall.

During President Trump’s second term in office, she has written about tariffs and how they have been used by the president as an economic and foreign policy tool, the tactics he’s deployed to build a ballroom in the East Wing and how Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement has become an integral part of the Trump White House agenda.

Before joining the White House beat, she was the National Housing and Economy correspondent for the paper, winning the Newswomen’s Club of New York’s 2022 Nellie Bly Award for the Best Bylined Front Page Story on contract selling. Prior to joining USA TODAY in 2021, she served as a regional reporter for Gannett newspapers in New York and New Jersey, where she developed a specialized beat focused on Women and Power. She received a Best of Gannett Individual Achievement Award for her body of work, a Distinguished Feature Writing Award from the New York News Publishers Association, and an award for Responsible Journalism from the New Jersey Press Association. Before that, she worked as an education reporter and as an Editorial Board member for The Journal News/lohud.com. In 2020, she was part of the USA TODAY team that won the Award for Outstanding Media Coverage of Family Issues from the Council on Contemporary Families.

She started her journalism career as a municipal reporter for The Home News Tribune in New Jersey after having spent a semester at the New York Daily News in Manhattan as a general assignment reporter. Born and raised in Mumbai, Swapna received a bachelor’s in economics and sociology. She holds a master’s in sociology from the University of Bombay and another in journalism from New York University.

Ramaswamy briefed National Press Foundation fellows in March 2026: Local Reporting As Preparation for the White House Beat: A USA Today Journalist Shares Her Story.