Amanda Macias

Amanda Macias is an American journalist who reports on national security subjects for the financial news network CNBC.

Early life and education

Amanda Macias was born at Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas. She grew up in a military family and has lived on U.S. Army installations around the world. She is a 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and Finance. In 2020, she attended Columbia University as a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program.

In 2008, Macias worked as a general assignment news reporter and then anchor for NBC News affiliate KOMU-TV in Columbia, Missouri. She later joined Reuters as a field producer in Brussels, Belgium where she covered EU political institutions and NATO. In 2013, she moved to New York City and joined Business Insider as a national security reporter. In 2016, Macias moved to Washington, D.C., where she joined the national security team at CBS Radio.
In 2018, Macias joined financial news network CNBC as a national security reporter. In addition to national security, her beat includes the defense industry, State Department and the United Nations as well as the intelligence community.

Macias' source, a counterterrorism analyst, leaked classified intelligence reports to her and another journalist at NBC News according to federal prosecutors. The government referred to her as "Journalist 1" and Courtney Kube as "Journalist 2." NBC and CNBC are sister networks at NBCUniversal. The analyst, Henry Frese, pled guilty to agreeing to disclose classified information because it would support Macias' career and was sentenced to 30 months in prison but was released early.

She lives in the historic Capitol Hill neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and speaks three languages. In 2021, CNBC deemed Macias to be Hispanic.