President Donald Trump accused the Democrats on Tuesday of conducting a “coup,” to remove him from office.

He wrote:

As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!

Trump deployed his latest defense as the establishment media and Democrats grow increasingly critical of his rhetoric responding to the whistleblower’s complaint and the subsequent impeachment effort launched by the Democrats.

Trump said during private remarks at a reception in New York City after the United Nations General Assembly:

We’re at war. These people are sick, they’re sick and nobody’s called it out like I do. I don’t understand, people are afraid to call it out, they are afraid to say that the press is crooked, we have a crooked press, we have a dishonest media.

Those remarks were later leaked to the New York Times.

Democrats also raised alarm following the president’s decision to share a quote from Pastor Robert Jeffress warning of a “Civil War like fracture” if Democrats removed Trump as president.

Trump also suggested last week that the whistleblower and his informants were spies who were possibly guilty of treason.

“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information, because that’s close to a spy,” he said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? With spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

He also accused Rep. Adam Schiff of treasonous behavior after the House Intelligence Committee Chairman made up a version of the president’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make it appear worse than it was.

“It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday. “Arrest for Treason?”