Adjective noun phrase [closed]

Solution 1:

I am no native speaker but I don't see that as an approach to establish a new phrase and neither as a adjective-noun phrase. Instead the "more less" paradox is the unusual part of the sentence and therefore the construction to focus on (with more used as an adverb to describe the increased form of less). [I really hope it is an adverb, it would be in German.]
This could be either an accident (by Johnson OR the writer of the article) or meant as a word play by phrasing two opposing developments (increasing and decreasing) both the same way (as something increasing and the other thing increasing its decrease).
I don't know why he didn't say "more little" instead of "more less", with less already being the (grammatically) increased form of little. Maybe he wanted to emphasize the joke, while "more little hope" could have the bad connotation of more hope, but but still being only little.

However, I don't have the name for naturalized adjective-noun expressions.