!['The White Lotus' unpacks the staff-guest divide through the window of a luxury resort](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210707214125-02-the-white-lotus-super-tease.jpg)
'The White Lotus' unpacks the staff-guest divide through the window of a luxury resort
CNN
If you're itching for a tropical vacation, "The White Lotus" might cool those jets. The edgy, engrossing six-part HBO limited series follows multiple stories in a kind of modern "Upstairs, Downstairs" fashion.
The simple set-up involves a boat of luxury travelers arriving at an exclusive Hawaiian resort, where the eager-to-please staff waits to greet them. But "Fantasy Island" this isn't; rather, the guests turn to be an especially high-maintenance bunch, in ways that challenge the hotel's manager, Armond ("Looking's" Murray Bartlett, a particular standout among a terrific cast), who counsels employees about creating "an overall impression of vagueness" and the need to treat the patrons "like sensitive children."![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250216092711.jpg)
Amid Democrats’ shock and bickering over how much to respond to President Donald Trump is a deeper question rippling through leaders across the Capitol and across the country: How much should they rely on the same institutional and procedural maneuvers they used during the first Trump term, and how much are they willing to wield their own wrecking balls?
![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250215102651.jpg)
In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250215092938.jpg)
Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.