Pelosi says she was ‘set up’ over salon row and claims owners now owe her an apology

‘Do you wear a mask when you’re washing your hair?’ House speaker asks

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed that she was “set up” by business owners, after she was filmed getting a wash and blow-dry in a San Francisco hair salon on Monday despite it being shut to slow the spread of Covid-19.

On Tuesday, Fox News aired footage from the eSalon in the city, that showed the house speaker not wearing a face mask as she walked through the business after having her hair washed.

Salons in San Francisco have been closed over the last few months, due to the coronavirus pandemic, but they reopened for outdoor operations on Tuesday.

However, Ms Pelosi, who serves as a Democratic congresswoman in California, was filmed walking through the salon with her face mask around her neck during an appointment on Monday.

Speaking at an event about school reopenings in San Francisco’s Noe Valley on Wednesday, Ms Pelosi told the San Francisco Chronicle: “I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighbourhood salon that I’ve been to many times. It was a set up, and I take responsibility for falling for a setup.”

She added: “I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up.”

Ms Pelosi has been a vocal proponent of masks, and has criticised president Donald Trump for repeatedly downplaying the need for face coverings, according to the Chronicle.

When asked by the paper why she walked through the salon without a face mask covering her mouth and nose, Ms Pelosi replied: “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 ... and that picture is when I just came out of the bowl.”

After the footage aired, Erica Kious, who owns the salon, said that one of her hairstylists who rents a chair at the business opened it up especially for Ms Pelosi on Monday.

“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,” Ms Kious told Fox News.

“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,” she added.

Ms Kious said that under her interpretation of the city’s coronavirus rules, a blow-dry was not permitted, and claimed: “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. We’re supposed to look up to this woman, right? It is just disturbing.”

Republicans criticised Ms Pelosi for the incident and Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday: “Crazy Nancy Pelosi is being decimated for having a beauty parlour opened, when all others are closed, and for not wearing a Mask — despite constantly lecturing everyone else.

“We will almost certainly take back the House, and send Nancy packing!"

Ms Pelosi said that she does not want this incident to distract from her focus of passing coronavirus relief for those still affected by the ongoing pandemic and safely reopening schools across the country.

She said: “We have to get this country moving again, and I will not let this subject take away from the fact that we have 185,000 plus people who have died from this virus.”

According to Johns Hopkins University some 6.1m people have now tested positive for coronavirus in the US and the death toll has reached 185,395.