Nancy Pelosi says salon owes her an apology for ‘set up’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she fell for a ‘set up’  by the salon where she was caught on camera having her hair done without wearing a face mask and added the salon owes her an apology.

Pelosi held a press conference in San Francisco to address her controversial visit after a report from Fox News revealed had visited the eSalon in her district on Monday for a wash and blow-out.

She was seen on the salon’s security footage walking around without a mask, an image that went viral on social media and resulted in her getting mocked by many people, including President Donald Trump.

‘I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon I’ve been to over the years many times, and when they said we’re able to accommodate people, one person at a time, and that we can set up that time, I trusted that. As it turns out, it was a setup,’ she said. 

‘It was a set up, and I take responsibility for falling for a setup,’ she added.

She then turned to blast the eSalon owners, saying they owe her an apology. And, she threatened, there could be more to the situation than the camera revealed.

”There’s more to this that I’m not going to ask to the motivation for a salon to say to me, ‘Yes, come in’ and then they go for me. It was clearly a set up,’ she said. 

‘I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up,’ she added. 

And she said she wasn’t wearing a face mask because she just had her hair washed, asking the reporters questioning her if they wore a face mask when washing their hair.

‘I just had my hair washed. I don’t wear a mask when I’m washing my hair. Do you wear a mask when you’re washing your hair? I always wear a mask,’ she said. ‘And that picture is when I just came out of the bowl.’ 

San Francisco beauty parlors weren’t supposed to open until September 1, the day after the speaker had her treatment.

Additionally, the California Department of Public Health requires face masks to be worn in public indoor places. Those rules also including when a person is inline waiting to enter, riding public transportation, and working at many offices and other places. People are also supposed to wear masks when they are outdoors in public spaces if they are within 6 feet of others who are not members of their household.

Pelosi’s office hinted there was more to the story than originally appeared when the footage from inside the salon was revealed on Fox News.  

Her Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Hammill said in a statement Tuesday that ‘the speaker always wears a mask and complies with local COVID requirements.’ 

He added that the speaker followed the rules as they were presented to her by the stylist.

‘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,’ Hammill told Fox News. ‘The speaker complies with the rules as presented to her by this establishment.’ 

Her staff told CNN that the speaker has a regular stylist who typically goes to Pelosi’s house to do her hair. But that person was not available on Monday so referred Pelosi’s staff to a stylist at eSalon because it is where Pelosi’s regular stylist used to work. 

New restrictions in San Francisco allow hair salons to operate outdoors, but certain procedures – such as shampooing, color and chemical treatments – are still not allowed. 

Pelosi often wears a face mask when she is in the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. She has also blasted President Trump for not wearing one in public more.

President Trump mocked her on Wednesday morning for her maskless hair treatment, joining many others who skewered the speaker on social media. 

‘The Beauty Parlor owner must really dislike Crazy Nancy Pelosi. Turning her in, on tape, is a really big deal,’ Trump tweeted. ‘She probably treats him like she treats everyone else…And she strongly supported a Kennedy who just lost in, of all places, Massachusetts!’  

His comments come after he hosted 1,500 supporters on the South Lawn of the White House for his address to the Republican National Convention. Many did not wear masks and there was little social distancing. 

Erica Kious, the owner of the eSalon, called Pelosi’s visit a ‘slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feel that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work.’ 

Kious also explained she rents out chairs to different stylists and one of the stylists took on Pelosi as a client when the speaker’s normal stylist was unavailable. 

The stylist reached out to Kious Sunday night to ask to use the salon for the speaker.

‘I was like, are you kidding me right now? Do I let this happen? What do I do? Kious told Fox News, adding that she ‘can’t control’ what her individual stylists do.    

‘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,’ the salon owner said. ‘I have been fighting for six months for a business that took me 12 years to build to reopen. I am a single mom, I have two small children and I have no income.’   

‘The fact that they did this, and she came in, it’s like a slap in the face,’ Kious added.