He compared it to the Russia investigation, which didn't find sufficient evidence to prove he had colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. But he admitted he asked Ukraine for help.

He declared he didn’t hold up U.S. aid to Ukraine to secure the investigation. But his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, publicly said he did.

He said Democrats had launched a secret inquiry. But he criticized them when they opened the hearings to the public.

This week, Trump has tweeted about impeachment more than 25 times, using all of those messages.

While he may occasionally mention how impeachment affects his supporters, Trump also makes a slew of other arguments, ending each day with a jumble of sometimes contradictory messages.

Trump allies said they’re disappointed the president wasn’t prepared for this moment despite widespread predictions he would be impeached when he entered office nearly three years ago.

Read the Transcript. It is PERFECT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2019

“From the moment this president was elected, he was always going to be impeached,” said Michael Caputo, who was a top adviser to Trump during his first campaign. “They’ve had three years to get ready for this.”

Another former adviser who speaks to Trump blasted White House aides for a “dereliction of duty” for not devising an effective message for the president. “There should be one single message,” the person said, “but no one has agreed on what that is.”

Trump allies know they will never get him to refrain from talking and tweeting about impeachment throughout the day — the way more disciplined presidents might — but they wish he would hone the one simple message to take to voters in speeches, tweets and rallies as he campaigns for reelection while Congress tries to remove him from office. It’s a message that could be pushed by Republican lawmakers and surrogates on TV and radio and in speeches and op-eds and by the White House and Trump campaign in ads and on social media.

“He has a very compelling case. Most people wouldn’t say this is an impeachable offense,” said a former senior administration official who remains close to the White House. “But the lack of [a] clear and consistent message is not ideal.”

The White House just hired Pam Bondi, a former attorney general of Florida, and Tony Sayegh, a former aide to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to help with impeachment messaging, but it’s unclear if they planned to help Trump with his message. Bondi, for her part, was expected to appear on television on behalf of Trump.

A former campaign adviser said Trump’s best bet is to talk about how Democrats and the federal bureaucracy are part of the “deep state” that he has long accused of trying to take him and his supporters down. The president has long played the victim card to bond with Americans who feel betrayed by the political system.

Doug Heye, a veteran Republican strategist, agreed Trump should push the same message he has pushed on and off throughout his 2016 campaign and presidency: The system is rigged.

“He should say, ‘It’s rigged against you. It’s rigged against me,’ ” Heye said. “The system has been rigged against us since Day One. That’s his best play.”

When the House voted to set ground rules for its impeachment inquiry Oct. 31, it was largely along partisan lines. Republicans were unanimously against the process moving forward while Democrats lost just two of their 234 members.

Scott Jennings, who worked under President George W. Bush and is close to the Trump White House, said that argument works for two reasons: Trump can argue that the unelected bureaucracy never supported him and that Democrats have talked about impeachment since his first day in office.

Trump sees the appeal of the argument, allies say, but just needs to convinced it's the best — and only — message he should push.

“As I learn more and more each day,“ Trump tweeted last month, “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.”