The Open Veins of Venezuela | Interview: James Story

Thought we’d forgotten about Venezuela here on The Remnant? Think again! As prone as Jonah Goldberg is to getting distracted by the finer things of life—Old English dialects, zombie movies, etc.—he’s kept a weather eye fixed southward on our Bolivarian neighbor. Jonah is joined today by James Story, the former ambassador to Venezuela, to take us deep into the recent history of U.S.-Venezuelan relations, Nicolás Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez, a possible democratic transition, the oil deal, the Venezuelan diaspora, Marco Rubio, the boat strikes, the professional foreign service post-DOGE, and Pax Americana. Show Notes: The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Music 0:00 [background music] Music 0:14 Ladies and gentlemen. Music 0:16 Could I please have your attention? Can you dig it? Jonah Goldberg 0:24 [crowd cheering] Good evening, listeners. This is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant Podcast, brought to you by The Dispatch and Dispatch Media. We could not have more serendipitous convenient timing for today's guest. The only problem is the release of this podcast won't be till, I think, Monday, so it's not perfectly on the nose. But today we have James "Jimmy" Story, I've confirmed that, served as both ambassador and chargé d'affaires to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela from July 2018 until May 2023. He's a career senior Foreign Service officer. He retired in May 2025. Ambassador Story is a founding partner of Global Frontier Advisors, a geopolitical advisory firm focused on critical minerals, supply chains, and renewable energy product-- projects with Latin America and Africa. And maybe he knows something about non-renewable energy products in Venezuela as well. Ambassador Jimmy, welcome to The Remnant. James Storey 1:25 Jonah, thank y'all so much for having me today. It's a pleasure to be with you, and interesting days in Venezuela as always, and I think we're gonna unpack that a little bit. Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like