Alicia Menendez

Alicia Jacobsen Menendez (born July 2, 1983) is an American television commentator, host, and writer. She is the author of The Likeability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed as You Are and an anchor for MSNBC. She is also a contributing editor at Bustleand host of its Latina to Latina podcast. Formerly, she was a correspondent on the PBS show Amanpour & Company and the host of Come Here and Say That on Fusion. Prior to that she was a host and producer at HuffPost Live.

Menendez grew up in Union City, New Jersey, the daughter of United States Senator Robert Menendez and Jane Jacobsen. Her father is of Cuban ancestry and her mother is of German, Norwegian, and Irish ancestry. She graduated from Harvard College in 2005. She was raisedCatholic.

Described by Fast Company as "thoughtful, smart, and seemingly unflusterable", Menendez is a frequent guest on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. Prior to joining HuffPost Live, the streaming video network of The Huffington Post, Menendez co-hosted "Power Play" on Sirius XM's Cristina Radio, and served as a contributor to NBCLatino.com. In 2011, Menendez and Adriana Maestas founded Dailygrito.com, a website that offers a Latino take on politics and media. In 2012, DailyGrito.com was acquired by Politic365.com.

Menendez co-founded Define American with Jose Antonio Vargas, Jake Brewer, and Jehmu Greene. Define American focuses on immigration reform. She served as Senior Advisor at NDN, a center-left think tank and advocacy organization in Washington, DC. Menendez is a veteran of Rock the Vote and Democracia USA. She also spent time as a television segment producer and on-air contributor for RNN TV in New York. Menendez is a former correspondent for the show Amanpour & Company on PBS. She joined MSNBC in October 2019.

At Harvard University, Menendez's senior honors thesis on women's social capital drew the attention of U.S. News & World Report and The New York Times. In 2005, The Harvard Crimson named Menendez one of the 15 most interesting members of the class of 2005 and she was selected to deliver her undergraduate commencement address.

Menendez currently resides in Miami. She announced on July 10, 2014, during a segment on "Alicia Menendez Tonight" on Fusion about Comic Con that she was engaged. On February 15, 2015, she married Carlos Prío Odio at Coral Gables United Church of Christ in Coral Gables, Florida. Odio's maternal grandfather, Carlos Prío Socarrás, was the president of Cuba from 1948 to 1952.