Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday refused to apologize after security camera footage showed her flouting health regulations by visiting a San Francisco hair salon, claiming she was “set up” by the neighborhood establishment.
Video footage from inside ESalonSF was first obtained and released by Fox News on Tuesday. It showed Pelosi inside the salon on Monday and not wearing a mask. According to the Speaker, the salon told her that under the city’s newly updated pandemic health guidelines, the establishment was permitted to service one client indoors at a time. The guidelines, however, only allowed for services to be performed in an outdoor setting.
“I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon that I’ve been to over the years many times, and that when they said that we’re able to accommodate people one person at a time and that we could set up that time, I trusted that. As it turns out, it was a set up. So I take responsibility for falling for the set up,” Pelosi said during a Wednesday press conference in San Francisco. “It was clearly a setup. I take responsibility for falling for a setup by a neighborhood salon that I’ve gone to for years. And that’s, that’s really what it is.”
When a reporter asked whether the Speaker though she owed service workers an apology, Pelosi rejected the notion that she did anything wrong.
“Well, I don’t. I think that they owe – that this salon owes me an apology for setting me up,” Pelosi said. “I have been inundated by people who are in the hair service industry, saying, thank you for calling attention to this. We need to get back to work. Many of them are annoyed at the set up.”
In an interview with Fox News, salon owner Erica Kious said that she employs independent stylists, adding that she “can’t control” what they do after they rent a chair from her.
“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 said, adding that she “can’t believe” that Pelosi didn’t have a mask on.
Pelosi also told reporters that she “always” wears a mask, saying she only momentarily removed it while getting her hair washed on Monday.
“I just had my hair washed. I don’t wear a mask when I’m washing my hair,” Pelosi said.
[image via Fox News screengrab/YouTube]