House Speaker Johnson defends his work, says Republicans don’t have ‘functioning majority’

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that the slim Republican majority in the House is not enough to get what the conservative faction wants, despite GOP criticism.

“Listen, we’re dealing with the smallest majority in U.S. history. We have a one-vote margin,” Mr. Johnson said on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

“Some people are upset that we didn’t have the border on the foreign aid bill,” the Louisiana Republican said. “We fought all the way to the very end to do that. We’ve been fighting for the border every single day.”

Mr. Watters said Republicans are frustrated because it seems like Democrats in the House and the Senate, along with President Biden, are getting what they want, but the House GOP loses even though it has the majority.

Mr. Johnson shot back, saying the House doesn’t “have a functioning majority when you can only lose one vote if one person has a different idea.”

“It’s very difficult when very individualistic, individual-minded Republicans don’t want to move together as a bloc,” he said.

Mr. Johnson said he wasn’t going to name anyone specifically, even though Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has held a motion to vacate threat over his head every time he’s made bipartisan decisions.

The speaker compared the situation to football, saying some of his colleagues want him to “throw a ’Hail Mary’ pass on every play.”

“It’s not a game-winning strategy right now,” he said. “When you have this margin is three yards and a cloud of dust, right? We get the first down, we put points on the board and we get to November and we take back and grow the majority.”