Nancy Pelosi accuses hair salon of 'set-up' after she is pictured without a face mask

Nancy Pelosi has accused a hair salon of staging a "set-up" after footage emerged of her not wearing a face mask during a visit that was not permitted under coronavirus rules.

The Democratic House Speaker appeared to breach health regulations in San Francisco, her home city, when she visited the trendy eSalon in the affluent Marina district on Monday. Under the city's pandemic rules, indoor beauty services are not allowed.

The footage, shared widely online, shows Ms Pelosi walking through the salon with wet hair and her mask around her neck, not her face.

Ms Pelosi angrily demanded an apology from the salon, accusing the company of setting her up and misrepresenting city rules.

"I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighbourhood salon that I've been to over the years many times, and that when they said ... we're able to accommodate people one person at a time, and that we can set up that time, I trusted that," Ms Pelosi said. "As it turns out, it was a set-up."

"I take responsibility for falling for a set-up. I think that this salon owes me an apology."

President Trump leapt on the error by Ms Pelosi, saying she ought to have known the rules in her home city and accusing her of hypocrisy following her "lecturing" of him for not wearing a mask.

"The Beauty Parlor owner must really dislike Crazy Nancy Pelosi," he tweeted. "Turning her in, on tape, is a really big deal.

"[She] 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."

Earlier this year Ms Pelosi told Mr Trump that "real men wear masks" as he refused to wear one in public until July.

In February, the Speaker ripped up a copy of the president's State of the Union speech while standing behind him on live TV:

Erica Kious, owner of eSalon, told Fox News that one of the stylists to whom she rents chairs told her that Ms Pelosi had requested a wash and blow dry.

She accused Ms Pelosi of giving a "slap in the face" to struggling businesses by getting her hair done.

“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 said, adding that she “can’t believe” the speaker did not wear a mask.

Ms Kious said she had been "fighting for six months" to reopen her business.

"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."

Indoor beauty treatments are possible in some counties of California – which Ms Pelosi, 80, has represented in Washington as a congresswoman for more than 30 years – but not in San Francisco, where health order violations can theoretically be punished by a fine or imprisonment, or both.

Ms Pelosi insisted she had done nothing wrong, and told reporters: "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 have a mask."

Ms Pelosi's spokesman, Drew Hammill, said that the congresswoman only briefly took her mask off while her hair was being washed.

"The Speaker always wears a mask and complies with local Covid requirements. This business offered for the Speaker to come in on Monday and told her they were allowed by the city to have one customer at a time in the business.

"The Speaker complied with the rules as presented to her by this establishment."