San Francisco Mayor London Breed attempted to redirect fire at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi toward the president after security footage showed Pelosi getting her hair done with no mask inside a salon.
The video showed Pelosi inside the hair salon, which is currently not permitted in California. Salons have been closed since March, with state restrictions only allowing outdoor appointments beginning in September. Pelosi claims that she was "set up" by the salon owner and blamed the owner for giving false information about state restrictions.
The Democrat mayor backed up Pelosi and dismissed the notion that the Speaker was violating restrictions.
"So look, Nancy Pelosi has done so much for this city and even this country and in the midst of this pandemic and all the stuff that’s happening amidst this election, she is in Washington, D.C., fighting against a tyrant every single day," Breed said on Wednesday during a radio interview.
"We need to be focused on the issues and the fact that over 180,000 people have died in this country and we have a president that continues to divide us," Breed added.
The mayor also called the president a "dictator" and said that salons in California were still closed because of his inability to handle the pandemic on a federal level.
"It’s really unfortunate with everything happening in this country, with the fact that we basically have a dictator in charge of running this country," said Breed. "And we have our Speaker Nancy Pelosi working day and night to fight against the challenges against the White House — she has spent her entire career working for this city and working for this country — it’s unfortunate that this conversation has blown up in the way that it has and distracted from the real issue."
California has experienced some of the strictest lockdown orders in the nation under the leadership of Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom. The owner of the salon, Erica Kious, said she was offended by Pelosi's visit.
"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,” Kious told Fox News.
Pelosi addresses Monday's salon incident:
— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) September 2, 2020
“I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighborhood salon that I’ve been to...many times…It was a set up, and I take responsibility for falling for a setup.”
“I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up”