Nancy Pelosi (DNC video screenshot)
Responding to being caught on a surveillance video at a San Francisco hair salon violating coronavirus restrictions, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed Wednesday she was "set up" by her stylist.
Her hairdresser "owes" her an "apology" she said told reporters amid backlash from a Fox News' report that she visited a ESalonSF in San Francisco on Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out despite local ordinances in place since March.
"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 said that as "it turns out, it was a set up."
"So I take responsibility for falling for a set up," the Democrat said.
"The salon owes me an apology for setting me up."
Pelosi downplayed the fact she was seen in the video not wearing a mask.
"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?"
Security video shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., secretly getting her hair styled in a salon closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Video screenshot)
In a Fox News interview Tuesday, salon owner Erica Kious called out Pelosi's 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 said.
"We’re supposed to look up to this woman, right?" Kious said. "It is just disturbing."
Sacramento Bee: 'Dumb salon visit'
President Trump on Wednesday slammed House Pelosi for "constantly lecturing everyone else."
"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. "We will almost certainly take back the House, and send Nancy packing!"
Some Pelosi supporters, including Politico's Carla Marinucci, tried to defend her by suggesting it's against local law to distribute a surveillance camera video without the subject's permission.
Pelosi has harshly criticized Trump for his handling of the coronavirus.
"From the start, President Trump has denied the facts about how to best fight the coronavirus," she previously wrote on Twitter. "Now, he wants Americans to put loyalty to him ahead of the health of their children, parents, and siblings."
The Sacramento Bee editorial board said the "dumb salon visit" is a blow to to Pelosi's credibility.
"Shame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for forcing us to agree with Fox News on something," the board said.
"Pelosi’s apparent violation was caught on camera. Yet her office claims that she thought her indoor shampoo treatment and blow-dry was allowed under local rules," the Bee said. "Does Pelosi, one of the nation’s most experienced and powerful lawmakers, really expect people to believe she didn’t know she was violating public health rules? Is she so out of touch that she didn’t realize that California salon owners have been protesting against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s necessary shutdown of their industry for months?"
The paper said Pelosi "has handed Trump and Fox terrific ammunition in their quest to depict the COVID-19 pandemic as an overblown hoax perpetuated by Democrats seeking political gain."
"The idea that this powerful Democratic leader would sneak into a salon for a wash and a blow-dry against public health rules — and during a month when COVID-19 killed 3,745 people in California — is so ridiculous that it seems like some fictional right-wing conspiracy theory spread by Russian misinformation operatives on Facebook. But it happened," the paper said.
"This seems like a particularly bad time for dumb mistakes. Was Speaker Pelosi's blow-out worth the blow that the Democratic Party's credibility just took in the middle of both a deadly pandemic and a high-stakes presidential election?"
The Guardian of London noted Pelosi has regularly told U.S. citizens to wear masks and follow guidelines intended to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said the "real story here is why aren't these people worried."
"They set up two sets of rules. One for them, and one for us. ... The rules they set up for us are basically about controlling us," he said.
"They know, or at least they are acting like there is nothing to worry about."
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