The narrative of President Donald Trump's impeachment defense mirrors talking points from Fox News or the president's Twitter feed.

Trump's defenders aren't so much focused on rebutting the evidence presented by Democrats as by portraying impeachment as a partisan plot.

It's a strategy designed to rile up Trump's core supporters — and send a warning message to Republican senators who might side with Democrats as the trial proceeds.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

We're now several days into President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, which follows a set of hoary rules derived from English legal practices where the impeachment process has its roots.

But on another level, this is very much a 21st-century trial.

Trump's defense team isn't focused on presenting sober legal arguments to win over the opposition. Instead, it is pitching to the Americans outside Washington watching the trial on cable news, or following it on social media.

As the 2020 election gears up, it's a battle for hearts and minds. For Trump's defenders, it's all about reinforcing a narrative long familiar from Fox News or the president's Twitter feed.

They are seeking to portray the impeachment process as a desperate partisan plot, cooked up by Democrats to end Trump's presidency.

Their strategy is characterized by emotionally charged attacks, rather than a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of the case argued by Democrats.

An image from video showing the Senate voting on an amendment offered by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the impeachment trial on Tuesday. Associated Press

The fiery performances of the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, in the opening day of the trial best exemplify the approach — and have earned Trump's praise.

Democrats are "not here to steal one election — they're here to steal two elections," Cipollone said Wednesday. "It's buried in the small print of their ridiculous articles of impeachment. They want to remove President Trump from the ballot."

Democrats, meanwhile, are making the case that Trump and his emissaries sought to strong-arm Ukraine into announcing a baseless corruption investigation meant to politically damage the 2020 Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden. In other words, they are saying the president misused his office for personal gain.

In a heated exchange on Tuesday night with Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler that led both men to be admonished by the trial's presiding officer, Chief Justice John Roberts, Cipollone said Democrats "owe an apology to the president of the United States and his family, you owe an apology to the Senate, but most of all, you owe an apology to the American people."

The White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, after meeting with Senate Republicans. Reuters

It's an approach in which respect for the facts is, in some instances, taking second place to hammering home the narrative of a partisan conspiracy.

On Wednesday, Cipollone baselessly claimed that Democrats had denied Republicans access to closed-door depositions of evidence in the impeachment investigation.

In fact dozens of House Republicans were eligible to access the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility during the impeachment investigation, and some did attend.

Away from the Senate chamber, this defense is being repeated and amplified by the president's defenders on Fox News and other other conservative media outlets, as well as by the president himself on Twitter.

The president on Wednesday broke his own record for the most tweets and retweets in one day — including a one-hour period in which he averaged one every 88 seconds — in sharing impeachment attacks on Democrats by Senate allies.

Making sure Republicans 'stay inside the tent'

Trump's strategy has a clear objective.

Democrats need only four Republicans to vote with them for potentially damaging new evidence to be admitted in the impeachment trial, and new witnesses heard.

By keeping a firm grip on the Republican base, Trump is pressuring those who might vote against him.

"They have the senators in mind, but also the broader public," David Alan Sklansky, a former prosutor who is now a Stanford University criminal-law professor, told The New York Times.

"The president's side wants to keep the heat on Republican senators to make sure they stay inside the tent."

Trump and Dershowitz at a Hanukkah reception at the White House on December 11. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Riling up the base — via Fox News

Trump has packed his legal team with frequent Fox News contributors, such as the former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, who led the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998.

According to the Fox News critic Media Matters, members of his legal team have appeared on the network 350 times in the past year.

"A Fox News defense is what Trump is after — one that appeals to the base and thus keeps the pressure on Senate Republicans to avoid letting their consideration of the evidence against Trump get out of hand," Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent wrote in The Washington Post.

This is most likely the way the impeachment trial will continue to proceed: With Democrats placing their faith in their case that Trump sought to enlist a foreign power to smear a domestic adversary and Republicans continuing to fight the trial as a cable-news spectacle.