The White Lotus star Carrie Coon would find it “very hard” to be friends with a Donald Trump supporter.
She told The View hosts on Friday, “There was a time when it was possible to have conversations about it. But when you’re in an authoritarian slide, it becomes a closed system. The leader is the source of information—that’s not penetrable. When you’re inside of that circular information system, then it’s very hard. It’s very hard to talk about anything because there’s no basis in fact.”
Coon’s Season 3 character Laurie was baffled during the fan-favorite moment when Leslie Bibb’s Kate reveals she voted for Donald Trump. Though Coon believes it’s possible to be friends with someone who doesn’t “share your same beliefs” more generally, voting for Trump is a bridge too far.
“I believe in science,” Coon said, so “there’s no middle ground there.”
The Gilded Age star has never minced words about her opposition to Trump, which at one point drew her into a feud former View co-host Meghan McCain.
Politics were originally going to play an even bigger role in Season 3 of The White Lotus, with writer-creator Mike White including a storyline in which Coon’s character had a nonbinary or possibly trans child.
Coon explained to The Hollywood Reporter in April that Kate’s Trump vote “becomes much more offensive to Laurie because of her daughter, but this was before Trump was re-elected and before this war on the trans community was escalated.” White felt the additional detail was “actually too political, or too far, or too distracting” to include, she said.
Coon didn’t mind getting political during her View appearance on Friday. Before she would even answer Joy Behar’s softball question about her “spending habits,” Coon weighed in on their “Hot Topics” conversation about Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
“The big, beautiful bill that benefits billionaires includes $45 billion to expand detention centers,” she said. “And when you’re redefining who qualifies as part of an enemy population, like protestors who are not American or ‘animals’ or ‘insurrectionists,’ which is how we’re referred to, anybody can end up there.”
Behar asked the actress whether she believes people who have supported the president in the election will change their minds once his policies begin to affect them “personally.”
Coon doesn’t think so. “I think narrative is very powerful,” she said, “and it’s very easy to teach them that they should blame immigrants or trans people while billionaires pick their pockets.”
Behar concluded the interview by praising the actor for being candid. “Most actors don’t express opinions like that. They’re worried about their careers. Very brave,” Behar said.
Coon replied, “I’m a mom first.”
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