San Francisco Mayor London Breed weighed in on the recent controversy surrounding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to a San Francisco hair salon by urging people to “move on” and calling President Trump a “terrorist.”
"We have a terrorist, we have a dictator who is running this country, and Nancy Pelosi is at the forefront fighting against this person everyday, you know, and I'm not trying to excuse what happened," the San Francisco mayor said Friday . "I'm just saying that to allow an issue like this to turn our city upside down when we got folks who are homeless, we've got people who can't open their business, including these salons. I understand.”
Demonstrators upset with Pelosi’s visit to San Francisco’s eSalon, where she can be seen on video not wearing a face mask and ignoring orders for hair salons to remain closed amid coronavirus fears, gathered around her house Thursday with blow dryers and hair curlers .
Protesters have gathered in front of Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and are stringing up curlers and blow dryers on a tree after a video surfaced of Pelosi getting her hair done indoors/maskless at a SF salon @sfchronicle pic.twitter.com/v6KVORByaP
— Jessica Christian (@jachristian) September 3, 2020
Breed added, "I get that they have these feelings. They are voicing their feelings, but we are doing the very best we can, and I know that's not good enough for them, I understand. I get it, but at the end of the day, it is really time for us to move on."
Earlier in the week, Breed was asked on a radio show whether or not Pelosi violated San Francisco’s health order.
"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 before placing some of the blame on Trump arguing that "the reason why salons and other businesses like this can’t reopen has a lot to do with where we are as a country and the fact we have not had strong federal leadership and that’s what she’s fighting against.”
Pelosi dismissed claims that she did anything wrong by visiting eSalon and blamed the salon’s owner , Erica Kious, for setting her up.
"I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon that I've been to over the years many times, and that 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," Pelosi told reporters. "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.”
.@SpeakerPelosi blames a small business owner for her using their salon despite a San Fran ban: “It was clearly a setup … they owe me an apology” pic.twitter.com/dYgJ91Kqkw
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 2, 2020
Kious responded to that allegation on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program calling the notion she intended to trick Pelosi “absolutely false.”
"She had called a stylist in, or her assistant did, and made the appointment, so the appointment was already booked, so there's no way I could’ve set that up," Kious said in response to Pelosi’s apology demand. "And 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."
A GoFundMe account started by a friend of Kious has raised more than $250,000, with the money intended to help the salon owner stay afloat amid the coronavirus shutdowns and death threats she says she’s received since going public about Pelosi’s visit.
