CNN reporter Manu Raju, who spoke to Johnson, told Blitzer, "He's defending this move, Wolf. He included a provision in a House rule that would essentially deny Democratic efforts to force a vote that would call for a probe into Pete Hegseth's use of the app Signal that became, of course, very famous over the last several weeks, in which he talked about military plans, strikes against the Houthis in advance of that happening."

Raju continued, "Now, these types of votes that actually call for an investigation typically fail. Minority parties try to do this pretty regularly against.… the party in power. But in this particular aspect, there's a chance that Democrats could succeed. So, the speaker is taking the extraordinary step of including language in House rules to deny the Democratic efforts altogether, preventing that from even coming to a vote before the full House."

Hegseth's problems, Raju noted, aren't Johnson's only reason for this move.

Raju told Blitzer, "And I just asked the speaker about this. He's done this now on multiple occasions — not just on this, but also, to deny efforts to target Trump on tariff policy. I asked him why he's protecting Donald Trump."

CNN aired a clip of Johnson saying, "No, we're using the rules of the House to prevent political hijinks and political stunts. And that's what the Democrats have. As I mentioned: no leader, no vision, no platform. All they have is obstruction. They're trying to target."