President Trump on Wednesday morning found yet another reason to continue bashing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): a hair salon appointment in San Francisco that apparently flouted the city’s COVID-19 restrictions.
On Tuesday night, Fox News first reported on security footage of Pelosi visiting eSalon in San Francisco that shows the House speaker not wearing a mask while walking through the salon with wet hair. The owner of the salon, Erica Kious, told Fox News that she felt that it was “a slap in the face” seeing Pelosi flout COVID-19 rules, given how salons in San Francisco had been shuttered since March and were allowed to reopen on Sept. 1 for outdoor hairstyling services only.
Kious told Fox News that stylists independently rent chairs at her salon and that one of them alerted her that Pelosi was scheduled to come in for a hair appointment on Monday.
“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 stylists do if they rent chairs from her.
In a statement shared with TPM on Wednesday, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill maintained that the House speaker always wears a mask and complies with local COVID-19 requirements.
Hammill then acknowledged that Pelosi had complied with a salon employee’s interpretation of the city’s new COVID-19 regulations, which turned out to be incorrect. Hammill said that the salon told Pelosi that they were permitted by the city “to have one customer at a time in the business” and that she “complied with the rules as presented to her by this establishment.”
It didn’t take long for Trump to catch onto Fox News’ report on Pelosi’s hair salon appointment with retweets responding to it on Tuesday night.
If Nancy Pelosi can get her hair done in person – you can vote in person.
Pass it on.
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) September 2, 2020
On the left: Nancy Pelosi today shaming Americans, saying "you must wear your mask."
On the right: Nancy Pelosi yesterday violating covid rules for salons and not wearing a mask. https://t.co/vUfa9fsCsT pic.twitter.com/aUveM3Fn9m
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) September 1, 2020
Trump then went on his own tear against Pelosi’s hair salon debacle in Wednesday morning tweets.
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 2, 2020
The Beauty Parlor owner must really dislike Crazy Nancy Pelosi. Turning her in, on tape, is a really big deal. She probably treats him like she treats everyone else…And she strongly supported a Kennedy who just lost in, of all places, Massachusetts!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 2, 2020
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows weighed in on Pelosi’s salon controversy as well during an interview on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning.
“This is typical Washington, D.C.,” Meadows said. “They get on national TV. They preach to the American people that it should be one way and, yet, in private, when the cameras are not rolling and in this case, I guess the cameras were rolling, it shows a very different story.”
Meadows also appeared to jab Pelosi over stalled COVID-19 relief talks.
“It’s the same thing whether it’s in San Francisco with her going into a salon or in the privacy of a negotiating room — it’s time that she get serious about helping the American people,” Meadows said. “We invite her back to the table to hopefully help the American people.”
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Pelosi wrote that a 36-minute called she had with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on a COVID-19 relief package “sadly” showed that “Democrats and the White House continue to have serious differences understanding the gravity of the situation that America’s working families are facing.”
