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Who is Erica Kious? Trump wants SF salon owner who 'set up' Pelosi to be Speaker of the House

'So I just put out that if she was set up she shouldn't be leading the House of Representatives. I want the salon owner to lead the House of Representatives, because she set up, think of it, she set up the Speaker of the House,' Trump said

LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA: Days after a maskless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was caught on the CCTV camera of a San Francisco hair salon getting her hair done amid the pandemic, President Donald Trump took a jab at her during his Latrobe, Pennsylvania, rally on Thursday, September 3, night. 

He said to a cheering crowd that he would like Pelosi's salon owner to be the House of Representatives Speaker after Pelosi claimed that she was 'set up' by her political rivals when it comes to the fallout from the incident. "I want the salon owner to lead the House of Representatives," the president said. "She made a terrible mistake because you want people that can't be set up. She said 'I was set up, I was set up by the salon owner, I was set up'. I said 'tell me she didn't say that.'''

He added: "So I just put out that if she was set up she shouldn't be leading the House of Representatives. I want the salon owner to lead the House of Representatives, because she set up, think of it, she set up the Speaker of the House. Nancy, you're not supposed to get set up you're representing our country."

This was not the first time Trump had attacked Pelosi over the salon controversy. 

"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," Trump tweeted on Wednesday. "We will almost certainly take back the House, and send Nancy packing!"

After the salon owner, Erica Kious appeared on Fox News and made disparaging comments about Pelosi, the president tweeted, "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!"

Although Pelosi was supposed to speak to reporters and news outlets on Thursday morning, the event was canceled at around 11 a.m. Following the incident, Nancy and her camp claimed that the entire incident was "a set up" to paint her in a negative light by her political rivals. "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 we're able to accommodate people, one person at a time, and that we can set up that time, I trusted that. As it turns out, it was a setup. So I take responsibility for falling for a setup," the California Democrat said during a press conference at an event in San Francisco. She also demanded an apology from the salon for setting her up. 

In the Fox News interview, Kious told host Tucker Carlson that "the appointment was already booked so there was no way I could have set that up."  She added that she received "death threats" after maskless Pelosi's unauthorized visit to her salon on Monday. "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's absolutely false," she said. For the past six months, we are pretty much done. We have lost at least 60 percent of our clients, I've lost the majority of my staff. So six months is a long time to be closed down. Just to see her come in, especially her not wearing a mask, that's what really got to me. This isn't political, its the fact she came in and didn't have a mask on. If she is in there comfortably then why are we shut down?"

A letter released by the attorneys of Jonathan Denardo, the stylist who served Nancy at San Francisco-based eSalon last month, claimed that the cosmetologist and his client had permission from the owner of the salon to be there. he letter stated that Denardo followed protocols and mandates put in place by the city of San Francisco, throughout the appointment with Nancy on August 31. The stylist had worked at eSalon for over six years and regularly communicated with the establishment’s owner Erica Kious, which continued during the coronavirus pandemic that affected the way the business operated. In compliance with newly established guidelines, Kious received a phone call on August 29 from Nancy's team, which sought permission from the establishment's owner for Nancy to come in and have her hair done. During the call, it was explicitly stated that the appointment wouldn’t proceed unless the owner was okay with it.

Pelosi's daughter Christine posted the letter on Twitter.