US: The Republican Party in the US Senate was thrown into turmoil yesterday as it became clear that the White House wanted the Senate majority leader, Mr Trent Lott, to quit over his supportive remarks for a 1948 segregationist campaign.
Mr Lott has apologised five times for his comments, the latest during an extraordinary self-criticism on Black Entertainment Television on Monday evening, when he vowed to push an agenda that would help blacks.
However, the Mississippi senator is now seen by Republicans as a liability in the party's quest for African-American votes in future elections, and his colleagues have called a meeting for January 6th to decide if he should remain majority leader.
Observers on Capitol Hill say he no longer has the support of at least 26 senators needed to stay in the office he has held for eight years.
At stake is control of the Senate, where the Republicans won a majority of one in November's mid-term elections, securing 51 of the 100 seats.
If Mr Lott resigns his post and his Senate seat before January 21st, a new election has to be held within three to four months.
After that date, the Democratic governor of Louisiana could appoint an interim Democratic senator for two years, leaving the casting vote in the upper chamber to Vice-President Dick Cheney.
The remark that caused the firestorm was made at the 100th birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond, who ran for president as a segregationist candidate.
He was proud his state had voted for Mr Thurmond, said Mr Lott, "and if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."
On Black Entertainment Television, the majority leader said his remark was "insensitive at the very least and repugnant, frankly". He expanded on this in terms that observers said will infuriate his traditional power base of white voters.
"There has been immoral leadership in my part of the country for a long time" that held "wrong and wicked" positions on race, he said. He couldn't deny that he had been a part of it.
He explained that when he got to know Strom Thurmond he saw "a senator that was committed in the fight against communism, that had fought Nazism, a senator that was for fiscal responsibility, and one that also thought that law and order was very important, protecting people of all races against crime."
Mr Lott, who as recently as 1998 voted against legislation for affirmative action, said he was now for it.
He also said he would now support a public holiday for the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, something he voted against in Congress.
The White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said President Bush did not think Mr Lott needed to resign.
But the majority leader was wounded by Mr Bush's strong criticism of his comments last week, and Republicans close to the White House said Mr Bush now wanted him out.
If the Senate majority leader manages to hang on he could become a liability for the White House.
For example, President Bush would have to drop the nomination of Judge Charles Pickering to a higher court as Democrats have raised questions about his attitudes on race, and Mr Lott would now feel constrained about endorsing him.