Caught on video: Maskless Nancy Pelosi gets hair done
The San Francisco salon owner told Fox News that Pelosi's trip was 'disturbing' and 'a slap in the face.'
A defiant House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday claimed she was “set up” and a hair salon in San Francisco “owes” her an “apology” after it was revealed the California Democrat visited the business despite local ordinances keeping salons closed amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Pelosi, D-Calif., was responding to backlash after Fox News first reported that she visited a ESalonSF in San Francisco on Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out.
Salons in San Francisco had been closed since March and were only notified they could reopen on Sept. 1 for outdoor hairstyling services only.
Pelosi, Wednesday, responded, saying she has been to the salon “over the years many times.”
“I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighborhood salon that I have been to many times,” Pelosi told reporters Wednesday. “When they said they could accommodate people one at a time, and we can set up that time, I trusted that.”
She added: “As it turns out, it was a setup. So I take responsibility for falling for a setup.”
“The salon owes me an apology for setting me up,” she added.
In security footage obtained by Fox News, and timestamped Monday at 3:08 p.m. Pacific Time, the California powerhouse is seen walking through ESalonSF in San Francisco with wet hair, and without a mask over her mouth or nose.
The stylist doing her hair can be seen following her wearing a black face mask.
Pelosi, on Wednesday, downplayed the fact that she didn’t wear a mask in the salon.
“I just had my hair washed. I don’t wear my mask when I’m washing my hair,” she said. “Do you wear one when you wash your hair?”
Meanwhile, during an exclusive interview with Fox News Tuesday, salon owner Erica Kious cast Pelosi’s visit as a double standard.
““It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work,” Kious told Fox News, adding that she “can’t believe” the speaker didn’t have a mask on. (From the footage, it appears Pelosi had some kind of covering around her neck.)
“We’re supposed to look up to this woman, right?” Kious said. “It is just disturbing.”
Asked for comment on Tuesday, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill maintained that the speaker was following the rules as presented to her.
TRUMP SLAMS PELOSI FOR 'CONSTANTLY LECTURING EVERYONE ELSE' AFTER VISIT TO SALON
“The speaker always wears a mask and complies with local COVID requirements. This business offered for the speaker to come in on Monday and told her they were allowed by the city to have one customer at a time in the business. The speaker complied with the rules as presented to her by this establishment,” he said.
But the owner pushed back, saying that it was “absolutely not true” that the salon could open.
Kious said Pelosi received a wash and a blow-dry, but told Fox News that “you’re not supposed to blow dry hair,” according to coronavirus safety precautions for hair salons.
“We have been shut down for so long, not just me, but most of the small businesses and I just can’t – it’s a feeling – a feeling of being deflated, helpless and honestly beaten down,” Kious said.
“I have been fighting for six months for a business that took me 12 years to build to reopen,” she explained. “I am a single mom, I have two small children, and I have no income.”
She added: “The fact that they did this, and she came in, it’s like a slap in the face.”
Meanwhile, President Trump weighed in, blasting the speaker for “constantly lecturing everyone else” on COVID-19 guidelines.
"Crazy Nancy Pelosi is being decimated for having a beauty parlor opened, when all others are closed, and for not wearing a Mask–despite constantly lecturing everyone else," the president tweeted Wednesday. "We will almost certainly take back the House, and send Nancy packing!"
Fox News' Kelly Phares contributed to this report.
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