House Speaker John Boehner has told Republican lawmakers he was just teasing them when he ridiculed their reluctance to act on immigration legislation.

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The speaker offered the explanation Tuesday during a closed-door meeting with lawmakers back on Capitol Hill after a two-week recess, and later discussed it at a press conference.

Boehner said he told the lawmakers that you always tease the ones you love, but that some people had misunderstood.

The comments in question happened in Ohio last week when Boehner said Republican House members don’t want to take on immigration because it’s too hard.

What Boehner said, according to Cincinnati.com was:

“Here’s the attitude. Ohhhh. Don’t make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard,” Boehner whined before a luncheon crowd at Brown’s Run County Club in Madison Township.

“We get elected to make choices. We get elected to solve problems and it’s remarkable to me how many of my colleagues just don’t want to … They’ll take the path of least resistance.”

Boehner said he’s been working for 16 or 17 months trying to push Congress to deal with immigration reform.

“I’ve had every brick and bat and arrow shot at me over this issue just because I wanted to deal with it. I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” he said.

Some conservatives criticized Boehner for blaming the GOP instead of President Barack Obama. Boehner said Tuesday that lawmakers’ distrust of Obama was the real reason for inaction.

On Tuesday, The Christian Science Monitor reports that some 200 evangelical pastors from 25 states meet with their members of Congress to urge them to take action on immigration reform.

With House Republicans safe in their seats and Senate Republicans in line to make gains this fall, the chances for any movement on immigration reform before the midterm elections looks dim. But religious leaders around the country don’t appear willing to take “no” for an answer.