A combative US President Donald Trump told supporters in his electoral stronghold of Mississippi on Friday that a push to impeach him is driving an “angry” Republican surge ahead of 2020. “We’ve never had greater support than we have right now,” Trump claimed in front of thousands of cheering supporters in a packed arena in Tupelo.

The latest average of polls shows only 40.9 percent of Americans approve of Trump, but the fired-up president clearly sees his core base as essential to his political survival—and reelection next year. He called impeachment proceedings against him in the Democratic-led House of Representatives “an attack on democracy itself.” “But I tell you the Republicans are really strong,” he said, touting the emergence of “an angry majority.”

The rally in Tupelo was Trump’s first since the House voted overwhelmingly—but along sharply divided party lines—to put the impeachment probe on a formal track.

That vote Thursday set in motion a likely unstoppable drive toward Trump becoming only the third American president to be impeached.

He is accused of abusing his office by withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine into opening a corruption probe against one of his 2020 election rivals, Joe Biden.

But while Democrats advance against the president, Trump is focusing on a strategy that relies on party loyalty and flat out denial that his pressure on Ukraine was illegal.

As long as the Republican majority in the Senate sticks by him, the lower house impeachment will fail to remove him from office. And Trump thinks he has that support locked up.

“The Republicans have been amazing,” he said earlier in Washington.

Trump is also putting more effort into highlighting the economy, a point that Republicans might wish he stuck to more often, rather than his frequent diversions into controversial territory.

Trump got a boost on that score with figures Friday that showed employment growing at a steady pace. The 128,000 new jobs reported by the Labor Department exceeded predictions.

Unemployment rose slightly to 3.6 percent but is still near the lowest rate in decades.

US President Donald Trump announced Friday that a senior department official, Chad Wolf, would become the nation’s new acting homeland security chief, a role at the center of his crackdown on undocumented immigration.

Asked to confirm rumors that Wolf, a department undersecretary, would assume the role, Trump told reporters: “Well he’s right now acting and we’ll see what happens. We have great people in there.”

Trump announced the resignation of his current acting secretary, Kevin McAleenan, three weeks ago, marking the latest departure in a long list of top officials to leave his administration.

“As the president has said, Kevin McAleenan has done a tremendous job. He’ll be leaving after Veterans Day and after he departs, Chad Wolf will serve as acting secretary in the interim,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said.

McAleenan served in the role for six months, replacing Kirstjen Nielsen, who sat at the helm of the powerful agency for 18 months.

Homeland Security is the third-largest department in the US government, overseeing a number of agencies including the Coast Guard, Secret Service and FEMA, which handles disaster preparedness, coordination and support.

In addition, it is in charge of immigration-related agencies such as Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Wolf, who is the undersecretary for the department’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, has “made significant progress to strengthen US border security, address the humanitarian crisis on the US Southwest Border, and improve the integrity of the US immigration system” a biography on the DHS website says.

He will be the fifth official under Trump to lead the department, which was created in 2002