US Senate Republican leader Mr Trent Lott, under pressure to better explain remarks that ignited a racially charged furore, called a news conference for later today to try again to quell the firestorm that has led to calls he step down.
He called the news conference a day after President Bush rebuked him for saying the nation would have been better off if 1948 segregationist candidate Mr Strom Thurmond had been elected president.
There was no end to a drumbeat of criticism of Senator Lott, with people of various political stripes calling on him to relinquish his leadership post.
Senator Lott has apologised several times this week - in a written statement and on television talk shows. He said he used a poor choice of words in saluting Mr Thurmond last week at a 100th birthday tribute on Capitol Hill. He has also said he repudiates segregation because it is immoral.
Even if Lott survives as a Senate leader, he could be damaged. It would likely make it more difficult for him to fulfill one of his early goals in the Senate next year: winning confirmation for Mr Charles Pickering, a Mississippi friend, as a federal appeals court judge.
Mr Pickering was rejected for the post earlier this year by the Democratic-led Judiciary Committee largely because of complaints about his civil rights record.