House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to have removed her face mask for several seconds for a photo op on Friday, and the video of her doing so went viral, with critics lashing out at her for "breaking her own mandate".
In a video, Pelosi is seen standing in front of the US flag, accompanied by a newly-sworn-in congressman from Texas, Representative Jake Ellzey. As cameras flash, the House Speaker is seen ditching her mask, just one day after Capitol Police officers were instructed to arrest certain people who refused to wear masks on the House side of the Capitol.
In light of Pelosi imposing her own restrictions for mask eschewers in the House chambers, netizens and her Republican counterparts appeared to be outraged over what they saw as a display of hypocrisy.
Users wondered where the Capitol police were as "a COVID violation" was "in progress".
Other users noted that this was not the first time Pelosi had ignored mask regulations.
Notably, Pelosi was merciless to those who spoke against the mask mandate, particularly GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, whom she labeled "a moron" after he called the reinstatement of the regulation a "decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state."
He was not alone in protesting the new mask mandate, as dozens of Republicans, maskless, marched into the Capitol earlier in the week with the demand to "end the mask charade".
The guidelines envisaging Capitol Police officers arresting maskless visitors came on 29 July, with the new regulations ignoring a person's vaccination status - a detail that particularly angered its critics. The move by CDC health officials to impose new mask rules was dubbed by conservative critics "an abuse of power".