On her MSNBC show on Thursday, anchor Andrea Mitchell was desperate to stop Republicans from getting a major legislative win by passing tax reform. In a softball interview with Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, she breathlessly worried: “Do Democrats see any way to stop this bill from passing given the fact that Republicans are in the majority....[and] it looks as though enough compromises have been made to bring people on board there?”

Van Hollen tried to reassure her: “Well, you know around here, it’s not over until it’s over....but they still do not have on-the-record support from a majority of their caucus yet, and so, we’re fighting to the very end to try and get more and more facts out. This bill is gonna be harmful to the United States for many, many years to come.”

Mitchell followed up by hoping that Republicans would pay a political “price” for the enacting the policy: “There’s big impact on homeowners, on college students, on a number of sectors, and certainly high-tax states, with the state and local taxes. So will Republicans actually see a price for this?” The liberal lawmaker jumped at the chance to blast the GOP yet again: “I do think voters are gonna hold Republicans accountable for this, because it has been a con job.”

During a panel discussion minutes later, Mitchell declared that the politics of one provision in the bill were “ludicrous,” teeing up Nick Confessore of The New York Times to launch into a recitation of all the attack lines against the legislation:

You know, corporate executives say it won’t create jobs, they won’t hire people because of it. You know, economists say it will not create long-term economic growth. It will explode the deficit. It’s going to be the greatest transfer of wealth in recent years from the middle class to the wealthy and corporations. Everything is screaming this is a bad idea on the facts, but they want to do something.

He then ranted that Republicans were acting out a scene from Night of the Living Dead: “And it has all the appearances to me, Andrea, of like a zombie party that doesn’t know who it is anymore but knows it has to do something like cut taxes, and they’re kind of stumbling towards a tax cut as a result.”

That kind of nasty rhetoric from Confessore isn’t that surprising since the Times has declared that its mission in life is to defeat the tax bill.

Here are excerpts of the November 30 MSNBC coverage: