The owner of a San Francisco hair salon denied Nancy Pelosi’s claim that she was set up after the House Speaker was pictured without a mask.
“There was no way I could’ve set that up,” Erica Kious, owner of the Salon, told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson of Pelosi’s indoor Monday appointment.
“I’ve had a camera system in there for five years. I mean, I didn’t go in there and turn cameras on as soon as she walked in and set her up. So that is absolutely false,” Kious told the host.
The salon owner released a video of Pelosi walking around her salon without a mask, sparking charges of hypocrisy in light of the lawmaker’s usual calls to take the pandemic seriously.
Erica Kious, who said she rents out chairs to independent stylists, alleged that she did not release the recording for “political” reasons.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Nancy Pelosi Pictured Without Face Covering In San Francisco Hair Salon
“I just thought about my staff and people not being able to work and make money and provide for their families, and if she is in there comfortably without a mask and feeling safe, then why are we shut down? Why am I not able to have clients come in?” Kious argued.
Besides going out without a face covering, Pelosi defied another city COVID-19 rules by actually getting a haircut inside.
Hair salons in San Francisco are currently only allowed to lead business outside.
But Nancy Pelosi earlier Wednesday told reporters she was tricked by the salon.
“I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighborhood salon that I’ve been to … many times,” she told reporters.
“It was a setup. I take responsibility for falling for a setup.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she followed the regulations as laid out by her stylist, who told her that salons are now allowed to have one customer inside at a time.
Erica Kious confirmed on Wednesday night that was, in fact, her trust.
“I heard that,” Kious told Carlson, “and I thought to myself, ‘Well as a hairstylist, I see clients one-on-one. So, that would mean that I would be open, right?’”
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Nancy Pelosi refuses to apologize for salon jaunt, says she was ‘set up’
Matthew Soleimanpour, a lawyer for Pelosi’s hairstylist, made a statement Wednesday night backing with the House speaker’s interpretation of what happened.
Soleimanpour said the day before his client cut Pelosi’s hair, during a phone call with Kious, the salon owner “made several vitriolic and incendiary comments about Speaker Pelosi.”
“It appears Ms. Kious is furthering a set-up of Speaker Pelosi for her own vain aspirations,” the statement said.
