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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she takes responsibility for "falling for a setup," after a video leaked to Fox News showed she visited a San Francisco hair salon for a personal appointment at a time when the city was not allowing indoor services due to COVID-19 restrictions.
What she's saying: "I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon that I've been to over the years many times. When they said what 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. So I take responsibility for falling for a setup. And that's all I'm going to say on that."
- "I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up," Pelosi added.
The other side: In a phone interview with Fox News, salon owner Erica Kious said, “It was a slap in the face that [Pelosi] 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 added she "can’t control” what her stylists do if they rent chairs from her, as one of them did for Pelosi's appointment.
- “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.
President Trump reacted in a tweet Wednesday: "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. We will almost certainly take back the House, and send Nancy packing!"