Whoopi Goldberg declares ‘The White Lotus’ to be ‘The Caucasian Lotus’

The White Lotus? You’re in danger, girl.

From her post as moderator at The View‘s Hot Topics table, EGOT-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg declared an unofficial name change for Mike White‘s beloved HBO drama series, at the top of a panelist discussion about the show introducing a character who voted for Donald Trump.

“The White Lotus — or, The Caucasian Lotus, as I call it — is about ultra-rich people going to exotic locations. But, there’s a conversation from the latest episode that a lot of Americans can relate to these days,” Goldberg said.

The show then played a clip of Carrie Coon‘s season 3 character, Laurie, grilling one of her longtime friends, Kate (played by Leslie Bibb), over politics.

“Wait, are you a Republican?” Laurie asks Kate in the clip, with the latter confirming that she’s an independent voter. “You didn’t vote for Trump, though, did you?” Laurie continues, while Kate simply smiles and asks, “Are we really going to talk about Trump tonight?”

Back at The View table, conservative cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin observed that the trio of friends (also including Michelle Monaghan) who reunite for an international vacation “are not actually friends” because “they don’t know anything about each other’s lives,” and pointed to her own real-life experience with Democrats in her life as proof that political differences can lead to healthy friendships.

“Maybe some of what’s happening, like they’re trying to take apart the Department of Education, maybe that is a good thing because maybe it’ll force us to make sure that our kids actually get what they need,” the 69-year-old said. “This is now in our hands, and it’s going to be tough and nobody wants to do it because it’s a bitch, but you know what? If it comes down to your survival, this is what you’ve got to do.”

Coon and Bibb previously reacted to the White Lotus Trump scene in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“I feel like Mike had binoculars into the future because when we did it, it just didn’t feel [timely anymore],” Bibb said. “I was like, ‘We already did that. That was in the past.’ I don’t even think Trump was running when we did it — it was in January or February of last year or something, so yeah, that was pretty wild. But he’s like a little soothsayer, that Mike White. It feels like we’ve hit a nerve. We’re in the zeitgeist, as they say. We’ve done something current, if you will.”

Coon added that the cast “didn’t really talk about” the scene or Trump on set. “Mike’s stuff is always on the page,” she said. “You also know that he’s not going to let you leave until he gets what he needs out of you, and so that’s always a comforting feeling.”

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.