Outrage at President Donald Trump's statements this week about the deadly racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, continues to buffet his administration. And it may have helped push out his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, the former head of the Breitbart media organization that is known as a haven for white nationalists and other right-wing extremists.

The New York Times reported Friday morning that Trump "has told senior aides that he has decided to remove Stephen K. Bannon." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later confirmed that Bannon is leaving his post.

"We are grateful for his service and wish him the best," she said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Bannon told American Prospect co-editor Robert Kuttner that Trump's embrace of the alt-right is a winner for the president. "The Democrats: the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," Bannon said. "I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."

White nationalists have praised Trump's comments this week in which he blamed "both sides" for the weekend violence in Virginia -- not just the white racists marching in Charlottesville but also Americans protesting against the neo-Nazis. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who participated in the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally, thanked Trump on Twitter after the president's press conference.

But mainstream Republicans are recoiling from the president's remarks, with leaders ranging from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham expressing shock and disgust.

"Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn," 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said of Trump's shocking press conference. "His apologists strain to explain that he didn't mean what we heard. But what we heard is now the reality, and unless it is addressed by the president as such, with unprecedented candor and strength, there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric."

Trump now has one less apologist straining to explain what he meant. The reason for Bannon's ouster is unknown. Pundits speculate it could be because he's guided Trump toward his confrontational, pro-white-nationalist stance. Or that it could be because, in his interview with Kuttner, Bannon revealed that that stance, from Bannon's point of view, might be little more than political expediency.

"Ethnonationalism -- it's losers," Bannon said. "It's a fringe element. ... These guys are a collection of clowns."

-- Douglas Perry