Caught in a shuttered hair salon without a face mask, Pelosi claims it was 'a setup'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi protested Wednesday that she was the victim of "a setup" after footage emerged of her inside a shuttered San Francisco hair salon without a face mask, an incident over which the California Democrat has drew considerable criticism. 

Salons are currently prohibited from operating indoors in California. 

A spokesman for Pelosi's office said on Tuesday that the hair salon "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," and that Pelosi herself "complied with the rules as presented to her by this establishment."

Yet following backlash, Pelosi on Wednesday publicly claimed that the incident had been "a setup."

"I've been there many times," she said at a press conference. Pelosi also reiterated that she was told it was allowable for single customer to enter into the salon for appointments. 

"I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon that I've been to over the years many times," she said. "As it turns out, it was a setup. So I take responsibility for falling for a setup. And that's all I'm going to say on that."

"This salon owes me an apology, for setting [me] up," she said in response to a followup question.

Pelosi's hairstylist was reportedly an independent worker renting one of the salon's chairs from the owner of the business. The owner told Fox News that she viewed it as "a slap in the face that [Pelosi] went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in."