comic-con

There were no air kisses this time around, as Anthony Scaramucci made his weekend television debut as White House communications director.

I’m Christina Bellantoni. Welcome to the Monday edition of Essential Politics.

The newly appointed, politically inexperienced Scaramucci — known as “The Mooch” at the White House — was slick, polished and addressed his boss directly during a round of Sunday show appearances.

But he was put to the test right away, given President Trump had raised the specter of presidential pardons Saturday. Declaring his “complete power” to grant them in a string of angry tweets that reflect his growing concern about the widening criminal investigation into potential collusion with Russia, Trump also said it’s too soon to consider pardons.

Can he even legally do so? Legal opinions are mixed.

In a statement Monday, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner denied that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” Kushner said in the statement.

THE NEW FACE OF THE WHITE HOUSE

Meet Scaramucci, a Long Island native, outer-borough New Yorker without government experience who has ascended through the business world — and television media — to leap directly into the Trump administration.

In introducing himself to the nation, Scaramucci promised to above all else be loyal to the president, to aggressively try to stop leaks to the press and to help Americans understand just how awesome his boss is — no matter what he’s said previously.

Will he take that message to the state that Trump lost by millions of votes? We may soon find out. The new communications director is scheduled to appear in Southern California this weekend at the third annual Politicon in Pasadena.

And as Sean Spicer heads for the exit, we relive his greatest hits (and misses).

Get the latest about what’s happening in the nation’s capital on Essential Washington.

ABOUT CALIFORNIA’S CLIMATE DEAL

State lawmakers just voted to extend California’s cap-and-trade program, a key tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But how does the program work? And how would it be changed by new legislation? Chris Megerian and Joe Fox go through all the details here.

Patrick McGreevy also takes a look at the fire prevention fee levied on nearly 800,000 rural California properties that was so reviled by Republican lawmakers, landowners and taxpayer groups that they tried a referendum, a lawsuit and five pieces of legislation to repeal it during the last six years. A measure to suspend and eventually repeal the fee was finally approved by the Legislature — after Democrats offered it as a bargaining chip to entice Republicans to help pass cap-and-trade.

REPUBLICAN DRAMA UNFOLDS IN SACRAMENTO

The bipartisan vote was noticed from coast to coast. But for some Republicans it left a feeling of betrayal, despite longtime GOP leaders saying that Ronald Reagan would have been proud of the deal.

Assembly GOP leader Chad Mayes was challenged for joining Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrats on the cap-and-trade vote. Mayes seemed to maneuver through the tough position with enough support to continue leading, but got the bad news that one of his lieutenants was resigning in protest.

He defended himself and the other Republicans who voted for cap-and-trade in a Wall Street Journal piece last week.

COGDILL PASSES AWAY

Eight years ago, another Republican defied his party to work with Democrats (and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) on a major issue facing California’s government.

Dave Cogdill, whose bipartisan vote cost him his leadership seat, died of pancreatic cancer. He was 66.

Sacramento bureau chief John Myers details Cogdill’s role in the 2009 budget crisis, and how his legacy was honored.

A LITTLE BREAK

Legislative recess began with little fanfare after a busy start to the week with the cap-and-trade vote. Lawmakers will return to Sacramento Aug. 21.

We’ll be covering the continued fallout on this issue, along with Brown’s signing of the measure into law. Follow along with us on our Essential Politics news feed.

THAT WAS QUICK

Republican David Hadley abandoned his bid for governor two weeks after launching his campaign. Seema Mehta reports the former state lawmaker concluded that he could not win.

WHAT’S DELAINE EASTIN THINKING?

Eastin knows she’s up against some pretty major Democratic heavyweights in the 2018 governor’s race, but insists she’s not intimated. The former state schools chief jumped into the race last fall because, she says, the Democrats ruling over Sacramento weren’t doing enough for public school kids.

Eastin, who hasn’t held public office for almost 15 years, sat down with Phil Willon in a Sacramento coffee shop recently to talk about her odds in the race, her politics and her frustrations with the state’s leadership.

WORKING TOGETHER

Celebrating rare cooperation between California and the Trump administration, Brown and federal officials on Friday marked the start of a more than $1.3-billion project to convert the Caltrain service between San Jose and San Francisco from diesel to electric trains.

The Brown administration, which has disagreed with Trump over issues ranging from climate change to immigration, joined congressional Democrats in aggressively lobbying the White House and U.S. Department of Transportation for federal funding of the project when it appeared to be in jeopardy.

PARTY CHAIR ERIC BAUMAN SURVIVES CHALLENGE

A California Democratic Party commission on Saturday upheld the election of Eric Bauman as party chair and rejected allegations by his rival that the vote may have been tainted by ballot stuffing and other wrongdoing. Still, don’t expect Democratic activist Kimberly Ellis, who lost by just 57 votes and challenged Bauman’s election, to go away quietly, Willon reports.

Ellis already has indicated that she may take her case to the courts, saying the party panel that reviewed the election results was biased in favor of Bauman. The compliance review commission met all day on Saturday to examine 355 ballots deemed questionable out of the nearly 3,000 cast by party delegates. In the end, 47 ballots were ruled invalid. And that was not enough to change the outcome.

TO WIN THE HOUSE, DEMOCRATS MUST TOPPLE CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS. HERE’S HOW THE MONEY RACE LOOKS TODAY

The 13 races identified by the Los Angeles Times as potentially competitive in 2018 have more than 60 candidates combined, with more people showing interest daily.

Sarah Wire and Christine Mai-Duc dug through their campaign finance reports to get a sense of the state of the race. California’s congressional races are pivotal to Democratic efforts to flip the House. Republicans have a 24-seat advantage in Congress, and Democrats’ path to a majority likely includes at least a few of the 14 California districts currently held by the GOP.

Mike Levin, taking on Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), has the biggest war chest so far of any California challenger.

Bryan Caforio, who’s looking for a rematch against Rep. Steve Knight of Palmdale, raised nearly as much money as the incumbent in the latest quarter, but despite lackluster fundraising Knight still has a cash advantage with $403,301 in the bank as of June 30.

Two other developments about the battle for House control:

A former Obama White House advisor joins a growing list of Democratic challengers to Rep. Mimi Walters of Irvine. Brian Forde, who previously served as a senior advisor on technology to President Obama, jumped into the race for the 45th Congressional District last week.

Plenty of Democrats have lined up to run against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), but he’s just drawn his first Republican challenger of 2018. Stelian Onufrei, a Romanian immigrant who owns a construction company, says he’s running against Rohrabacher, whom he calls a “political lightning rod.”

POLITICAL ROAD MAP: THE QUIET PART OF THE CAP-AND-TRADE DEAL

There’s one part of last week’s cap-and-trade deal that won’t play out politically until next year. And as John Myers pointed out in his Sunday column, it’s a ballot measure that Republicans hope will force lawmakers into an uncomfortable position in a few years: signing off on how climate change cash is spent, which includes Brown’s controversial high-speed rail project.

TODAY’S ESSENTIALS

— This week’s California Politics Podcast focuses entirely on the big cap-and-trade deal, and its political implications for Republicans and Democrats.

— Backers of an effort to remove state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) from office through a recall election have gone to court to block a change to the rules pushed through the Legislature by Democrats.

— Brown signed a bill exempting Marin County from the state’s affordable housing laws.

— California’s real estate agents have written a proposed 2018 ballot initiative that could lower the property taxes of millions of homeowners who sell their current house and buy a new one.

— Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra is keeping the pressure on Trump on the DACA program for children brought to the United States illegally.

— Rep. Ed Royce stopped Rohrabacher from going to Russia last spring, a senior GOP aide said. The news came on the heels of reports that Rohrabacher was encouraged by the Russian government to hold hearings on sanctions.

— John Chiang used superhero destruction to talk up infrastructure needs at Comic-Con in San Diego.

— Two California House members were sued for displaying rainbow flags outside their Capitol offices.

— Sen. Kamala Harris wants to study whether cash bail is the right way to decide if someone stays in jail pretrial.

— With Nevada suffering a shortage of legalized marijuana, California’s state pot czar said efforts are being made in her state to make sure sufficient licenses go to farmers, testers and distributors to supply retailers. Providing temporary, four-month licenses to support some businesses including growers is planned “so we don’t have a break in the supply chain,” said Lori Ajax.

— Senate Republicans aren’t even sure what they’ll be voting on when the repeal-only healthcare bill comes to the floor this week.

— The Southern California factory that makes most of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats — the one we stepped inside almost two years ago — was in the spotlight again during “Made in America” week. Facing questions about the continued manufacture of Trump-branded goods outside the U.S., the president’s campaign sent out a press release touting that all merchandise sold by the campaign is “made right here in America,” including the hats, which are made in the Cali-Fame factory in Carson.

— The Trump presidency is hurting his Los Angeles-area golf course.

LOGISTICS

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SAN DIEGO — Over the years, Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con has built a reputation — and an expectation — as the room where Hollywood juggernauts in attendance at the annual pop culture extravaganza unveil exclusive footage, break news and share behind-the-scenes stories with devoted fans, who often spend hours in line just for a chance to make it through the doors.

It’s not surprising, then, that headlines going into this year’s Comic-Con, which concludes Sunday, carried an air of disappointment about the absence of Marvel and other major film studios from Hall H’s programming schedule — even if 2025 is not the first time Marvel and others have sat out Comic-Con for one reason or another.

But for many fans in attendance, the news merited little more than a shrug.

Hector Guzman, who along with his friend Joaquin Horas made the trip from Los Angeles, acknowledged that the Hall H slate “felt a little bit different this year” with no Marvel Studios panel.

But “there’s still a wide presence of Marvel,” he added. “The ‘Fantastic Four’ movie that just came out — we’ve been seeing a heavy push on that this year.”

Guzman and Horas had spent a little over an hour in the Hall H line Friday afternoon trying to make it to the “Tron: Ares” panel before bailing, but they said that in their three years of attending the event, Hall H usually isn’t on their itinerary.

“If it’s interesting to us, we’ll give it a shot, and if it’s not, then there’s always plenty of other events and stuff going around [the convention],” said Horas. He and Guzman explained that they are generally more interested in exclusive merchandise, custom works by artists and getting together with their friends in cosplay.

Other attendees like Jennifer Moore and Sam Moore of British Columbia, Canada, took advantage of the absence of popular Hall H mainstays to get into Friday presentations they were excited about, including for “Alien: Earth” and “The Long Walk.”

“Last year was my first time [in Hall H],” said Jennifer Moore, who said they’d been attending the event for 10 years.

“Now [that] there’s no Marvel thing or DC thing, it’s pretty easy to get in,” said Sam Moore. “We’ve just been doing walk-ins [for Hall H] this year.”

That’s not to say Hall H was entirely without spectacle: Highlights included an ensemble of bagpipers performing “Scotland the Brave,” a dazzling laser light show, the world premiere of the “Alien” franchise’s first ever television series and an appearance by “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas to promote the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

A look inside the “Tron: Ares” Hall H panel at Comic-Con.

(Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP)

And although the Comic-Con experience has grown beyond the walls of the San Diego Convention Center, with immersive experiences and pop-ups spilling into the city’s Gaslamp Quarter and the Embarcadero, Hall H remains a venerated programming space for panelists and attendees alike.

“I want to give people the experience that they bought their tickets for to come here,” said Noah Hawley, the creator of “Alien: Earth” before the upcoming FX series’ Hall H presentation on Friday. “I was surprised the first time I came to Comic-Con, how emotional it is for the people who attend. There’s a lot of people for whom [361] days a year, they have to pretend to be somebody else. These [four] days of the year, they get to be who they really feel like they are on the inside.”

The Moores were among those who were able to make it into Hall H without much of a wait on Friday morning. But by Friday afternoon, the line had grown much longer in anticipation for later panels, which included capacity crowds. Other big draws included anime franchise entry “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” and DC Studios co-chief James Gunn, who received an ovation for the success of his recent “Superman” reboot while presenting the second season of the John Cena series “Peacemaker.”

Even those who were attending Comic-Con to promote their own projects couldn’t hold in their excitement for anime juggernaut “Demon Slayer.” Besides the Hall H, panel ads promoting the upcoming movie — which has already broken attendance records in Japan — adorned a nearby hotel and the trains of the Trolley.

“There is a part of me that just wants to be out with the fans in my Tanjiro outfit with the earrings with my daughter,” said actor Babou Ceesay of “Alien: Earth,” referencing the young warrior with a gentle heart at the center of “Demon Slayer.”

The growth of anime and animation programming at Comic-Con and inside Hall H is a reminder that the convention is best understood as a reflection of ongoing shifts in nerd culture and fandom. Having evolved from a gathering primarily for comic book collectors to a broader celebration of pop culture where blockbuster movies once had a stranglehold, Comic-Con may now be witnessing the loosening of comic book superhero films’ grip on the zeitgeist as a whole. Indeed, television has steadily increased its Comic-Con footprint for years. Studios and streamers have also been organizing their own promotional events, such as Disney’s D23 and Netflix’s Tudum, to build up buzz on their terms, too.

Plus, as fan Robbie Weber of Los Angeles reiterated, Comic-Con is more than just what happens in Hall H. When he first attended the event 11 years ago he was among those that camped out overnight in order to get into the hall, but this time around he skipped it, opting to explore activations and other panels instead.

“We saw [comic book writer] Jonathan Hickman [on Thursday],” said Weber. “We saw a friend on the “Primitive War” panel [on Friday], which was really cool. It was the first time I’ve been able to see a friend do something like that.”

For many, Comic-Con’s main draw remains how fans can freely celebrate their passions.

“Alien: Earth” actor Alex Lawther said it was nice to hear the excitement of the people around him on his San Diego-bound train as they reminisced about their past experiences and shared photos of their cosplay.

“I really get that intense enjoyment of something to the point where you want to walk down the street wearing the costumes,” he said.

SAN DIEGO — Sydney Chandler has wanted to attend San Diego Comic-Con as a fan for years.

So it’s “surreal” that the actor’s first experience with the annual pop culture expo is to promote her upcoming FX series “Alien: Earth.” Chandler stars in the “Alien” prequel as Wendy, a young girl whose consciousness has been transferred to an android.

“To be able to do it in this capacity is just mind-blowing,” she tells The Times in advance of the show’s Hall H premiere on Friday. “It’s emotional because we worked on this for so long and I learned so much. … I’m kind of at a loss of words.”

She does have words of appreciation, though, including for what she’s learned from her character.

“Her journey of finding out how to hold her own and stand on her own two feet taught me so much,” says Chandler. “I’m an overthinker. I’m an anxious person. I would have run so fast. I would not be as brave as her, but she taught me … that it’s OK to just stand on your own two feet, and that’s enough. That’s powerful.”

Even before the show’s Hall H panel, fans have gathered on the sidewalk outside of the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego to catch a glimpse of Chandler and her “Alien: Earth” cast mates Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin and Babou Ceesay, along with creator Noah Hawley and executive producer David Zucker, on their short trek to the bus that would transport them to the convention center for the show’s world premiere.

On the ride over, Hawley betrays no nerves about people seeing the first episode.

“I really think, in a strange way, it plays for all ages because it is about growing up on some level,” says the showrunner. “But it’s also ‘Alien,’ and it is a meditation on power and corporate power. ”

Huddled together on the bus with Lawther and Blenkin, Ceesay is surprised to learn that this is the first time attending San Diego Comic-Con for all three. There’s plenty of good-natured ribbing as they talk about the early interviews they’ve completed at the event.

“I just sort of want to make jokes with you all the time,” says Lawther as he looks towards his cast mates. “I find it quite giddy in the experience, and I had to remind myself that I’m a professional.”

“Sometimes the British sarcasm instinct just kicks in,” Blenkin adds.

Their playful dynamic continues as they joke about crashing Ceesay’s other panel, and also backstage at Hall H as they try to sneak up on each other in the dark.

After the panel, the cast is whisked away for video interviews and signing posters at a fan meet-and-greet at a booth on the exhibit floor. (“Timothy, you’re the man!” shouts a fan passing by.) Later, Hawley, Chandler and Ceesay will hit the immersive “Alien: Earth” activation where they will explore the wreckage of a crashed ship.

“It’s such a safe space for people who just enjoy cinema and enjoy film,” Chandler says of Comic-Con. “And that’s me. I’m a complete nerd for all this stuff, so just to be around that group — it reminds me of why I love film so much in the first place.”