Alicia Menendez
Menendez in 2017
Born
Alicia Jacobsen Menendez

(1983-07-02) July 2, 1983
EducationHarvard University (AB)
Occupations
  • TV commentator
  • news anchor
  • writer
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
Carlos Prío Odio
​
(m. 2015)​
Children2
Parent(s)Bob Menendez
Jane Jacobsen
RelativesRob Menendez (brother)

Alicia Jacobsen Menendez (/əˈliːsiə/ ə-LEE-see-ə;[1] born July 2, 1983)[2] is an American television commentator, host and writer.[3] She is the author of the book The Likeability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed as You Are (2019), and is an anchor for MSNBC. From 2020 to 2024, she was host of American Voices with Alicia Menendez on Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. She is also a contributing editor at Bustle and 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[4] on Fusion.[5] Prior to that she was a host and producer at HuffPost Live. She is the daughter of United States Senator Bob Menendez.[6]

Early life

Menendez grew up in Union City, New Jersey,[7] the daughter of United States Senator Bob Menendez[8] and Jane Jacobsen, a teacher.[2] Her father is a first-generation American of Cuban ancestry and her mother is of German, Norwegian, and Irish ancestry.[2] She graduated from Harvard College in 2005.[7] She was raised Catholic.[9] 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.[7]

Career

Menendez was 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.[10] 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.[3]

Menendez co-founded Define American with Jose Antonio Vargas, Jake Brewer, and Jehmu Greene. Define American focuses on immigration reform.[11] 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.[12] Menendez is a former correspondent for the show Amanpour & Company on PBS. She joined MSNBC in October 2019.[13] On September 19, 2020, she began hosting a new program on MSNBC, American Voices, which airs on Saturdays and Sundays.[14] In 2022, she was regularly seen on MSNBC serving as guest anchor of other programs such as All In, Alex Wagner Tonight and the 11th Hour.

Following November 2022's midterm elections, in which Republicans performed poorly among single women voters, Fox News host Jesse Watters said that "Democrat policies are designed to keep women single" and that single women need to get married as more married women vote Republican. On MSNBC, Menendez said that such comments exhibited "big incel vibes."[15][16]

In September 2023, Menendez's father, Senator Bob Menendez, was indicted for the second time on new federal corruption charges including bribery, extortion and using his position to benefit the Egyptian government.[17] On the September 30 broadcast of her MSNBC show American Voices, Alicia Menendez opened by recusing herself from covering her father's criminal indictment.[18] Menendez said that, while she cannot comment on the case, her colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News "have aggressively covered this story and will continue to do so, as they should".[19]

On November 30, 2023, MSNBC announced that Menendez would move to weekend mornings to anchor a new program, The Weekend, with Symone Sanders-Townsend and Michael Steele. Her show, American Voices, is set to end on January 13, 2024 with The Weekend premiering on the same day.[20]

Personal life

In 2015, she married Carlos Prío Odio in Coral Gables, Florida. Prío's grandfather, Carlos Prío Socarrás, was the president of Cuba from 1948 to 1952.[21] She lived in Miami [22] before moving to New Jersey with her husband and two children.[23]

Bibliography

  • Menendez, Alicia (2019). The Likeability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed as You Are. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-283876-6.
  • Menendez, Alicia (November 5, 2019). "Why We Should Let Go of Old Rules and Reimagine Leadership". Thrive Global.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Menendez says her own name at the very start of each of her "American Voices" shows on MSNBC.
  2. 1 2 3 "A Conversation About Identity – IV. Alicia Menendez: My Gringa Mother". Pew Research Center. June 1, 2012. Retrieved May 13, 2023.
  3. 1 2 Kelley, Maritza (Summer 2011). "Changing the Conversation". Latino Magazine. Retrieved September 23, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Come Here & Say That". Fusion. Archived from the original on May 12, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  5. ↑ "TVNewser - Jobs in TV News". Media Bistro.
  6. ↑ Kirchner, Lauren (August 17, 2012). "12 Hours of Huffing: A HuffPost Live Viewing Diary". Fast Company. Retrieved February 6, 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 "Alicia Menendez". Girls Leadership Institute. Archived from the original on October 30, 2009. Retrieved September 23, 2012.
  8. ↑ Kornblut, Anne E.; Peters, Jeremy W. (November 7, 2006). "Lieberman Prevails Against Lamont in Connecticut". The New York Times. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
  9. ↑ Menendez, Alicia (March 7, 2013). "The Future Of The Church Is In Their Hands". HuffPost. ...just a few years before I made my confirmation...and I made my communion a few years before that, when you grow up in the church, when you grow up going to catechism classes... (Minute 5:00)
  10. ↑ "New Cutting Edge Political Show on Cristina Radio". Tumblr. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
  11. ↑ "Our Team". Define American. Archived from the original on October 28, 2011. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
  12. ↑ "Alicia Menendez Joins the NDN Team". NDN. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
  13. ↑ Barr, Jeremy (October 1, 2019). "MSNBC Hires Alicia Menendez as Anchor". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 13, 2023.
  14. ↑ Barghouty, Leila (September 18, 2020). "Alicia Menendez's New MSNBC Show Will Amplify "Fresh, Smart, New Voices"". Bustle. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  15. ↑ Luciano, Michael (November 11, 2022). "'Big Incel Vibes': MSNBC Host Pans Jesse Watters' Comments About Single Women Voters on Fox News". Mediaite. Retrieved May 13, 2023.
  16. ↑ MSNBC [@MSNBC] (November 12, 2022). ""To me, it had big incel vibes": Alicia Menendez criticizes right-wing post-election rhetoric about unmarried women" (Tweet). Retrieved May 13, 2023 – via Twitter.
  17. ↑ Shabad, Rebecca; Dienst, Jonathan; Winter, Tom; Gregorian, Dareh (September 22, 2023). "Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine, indicted on bribery charges". NBC News. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
  18. ↑ Barr, Jeremy (September 30, 2023). "MSNBC anchor Alicia Menendez won't cover senator father's indictment". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
  19. ↑ Pengelly, Martin (October 1, 2023). "Bob Menendez's daughter says MSNBC colleagues will cover story 'aggressively'". The Guardian. Washington, DC. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
  20. ↑ Johnson, Ted (November 30, 2023). "MSNBC To Drop Mehdi Hasan's Show, Launch 'The Weekend' As Part Of Overhaul Of Saturday And Sunday Lineup". Deadline. Retrieved November 30, 2023.
  21. ↑ Marx, Linda (February 20, 2015). "Public-Service Driven, and Into Each Other's Arms". The New York Times. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
  22. ↑ Jersey, Kathleen O'Brien | For Inside (August 11, 2016). "For Menendez, whose daughter is pregnant, Zika gets personal". nj. Retrieved September 23, 2023.
  23. ↑ "Alicia Menendez". Harpercollins.com. September 23, 2023.
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