WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's chief strategist and senior counsel Steve Bannon is on the way out according to multiple sources.

The news broke after President Trump told aides that he decided to remove Bannon.

According to the New York Times, Bannon already submitted his resignation to the president.

Details are still emerging, but in the wake of the Charlottesville riots, some critics blamed Bannon for escalating racial tensions through his connections with the Alt-Right.

Statement from the White House Press Secretary:

 White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best. </s> WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon has been fired, two White House officials told CNN Friday.

A source told CNN that Bannon was given the option to resign but was forced out. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Bannon’s departure but did not say whether he was fired or resigned.

“White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best,” Sanders said in a statement.

The President has privately stewed over Bannon in recent days, including Thursday night from his golf course in New Jersey. He was furious with his chief strategist after he was quoted in an interview with the American Prospect contradicting him on North Korea and asserting that he was able to make personnel changes at the State Department.

Bannon’s exit comes just seven months after Trump took office and three weeks after retired Gen. John Kelly took over as chief of staff, looking to instill order in a chaotic White House beset by internal divisions, staff infighting and a storm of controversies.

Bannon’s exit meant one of the White House’s most controversial staffers, the man generally perceived as the driving force behind Trump’s “nationalist” ideology, would no longer be at the center of the Trump universe.

Bannon joined Trump’s campaign last year, moving from the sidelines as one of Trump’s top cheerleaders to a position atop his campaign apparatus.

He did not travel with the President during the first week of what White House officials described as a “working vacation” at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. Instead Bannon remained in Washington to work out of a temporary office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

This story is breaking and will update with additional news. </s> Steve Bannon, the embattled White House chief strategist, is leaving President Donald Trump’s administration, two senior White House officials told NBC News.

Bannon’s departure brings to a close his rocky tenure in the West Wing in which he clashed with many of Trump’s other top aides, including the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, stressed divisive nationalist themes as Trump's campaign chief, and is reported to have clashed with the White House National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster.

Trump did not endorse Bannon when asked about his future earlier this week and made his displeasure with the strategist known in April, hitting back at his strategist in a pair of interviews.

“You have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late," Trump told the New York Post then, downplaying Bannon's role as chief architect of his campaign victory. "I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary."

Trump also slammed Bannon in an interview with The Wall Street Journal as “a guy who works for me.”

Following those interviews, a source close to the president described Trump’s comments as a "warning shot," highlighting that the president "doesn't say these things in haste.” 



Story written by Andrew Rafferty </s> Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with county sheriffs in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Feb. 7, 2017.

Evan Vucci / AP file </s> Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump's chief strategist, has become the latest high-profile figure in the administration whose role has come to an abrupt end.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckerby Sanders confirmed that Bannon would no longer be showing up to work.

"White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day," Sanders said in a statement on Friday. "We are grateful for his service and wish him the best."

The New York Times earlier reported what it termed as an apparent dismissal, citing sources.

The development comes as the White House reels from the fallout over Trump's response to a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville on August 12.

The former head of far-right outlet Breitbart News is described as being the nucleus of one of several competing power centres in what has been a chaotic White House.

He repeatedly clashed with other top White House advisers and often ran afoul of the president himself.

Bannon offered his resignation to Trump on August 7, according to one person close to the adviser, AP reported.

The resignation was to go into effect a week later, August 14, which was the one year anniversary of when he officially joined Trump's presidential campaign.

It was then held back a few days after the violence in Charlottesville.

But Bannon had been on shaky ground for weeks, and his standing appeared in jeopardy when Trump's new chief of staff, Kelly, embarked on a personnel review of West Wing staff.

Kelly had indicated to aides that significant changes could be coming, according to an official familiar with Kelly's plans but not authorised to speak publicly.

READ MORE: Stephen Bannon and the old/new anti-Semitism

The president had also repeatedly diminished Bannon's role in his campaign in recent remarks and refused to express confidence during an impromptu news conference Tuesday.

"He's a good person. He actually gets very unfair press in that regard," Trump said. "But we'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon."

The decision whether to drop Bannon was more than just a personnel matter. The media guru is viewed in some circles as Trump's connection to his base and the protector of Trump's disruptive, conservative agenda.

"It's a tough pill to swallow if Steve is gone because you have a Republican West Wing that's filled with generals and Democrats," said former campaign strategist Sam Nunberg, shortly before the news of Bannon's departure broke. "It would feel like the twilight zone." </s> Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to President Trump, has stepped down from Breitbart, the far-right website he returned to over the summer as executive chairman after being ousted from the White House.

The website announced the news Tuesday afternoon in a short article posted to the site.

“I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform,” Bannon is quoted as saying in the article.

Neither Bannon nor a spokesperson for Breitbart immediately responded to a request for comment.

Bannon drew the ire of the White House last week when The Guardian revealed that author Michael Wolff quoted him in his book “Fire and Fury” as saying a Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign was “unpatriotic” and perhaps “treasonous.”

Trump responded at the time by slamming Bannon in a fiery statement, saying Bannon had “lost his mind.” </s> President Trump is cheering his former chief strategist Steve Bannon's return to leading the influential conservative media outlet Breitbart News after his forced resignation from the White House.

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Trump tweeted from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club Saturday that Bannon may be "even better than ever before" in his return to Breitbart.

Steve Bannon will be a tough and smart new voice at @BreitbartNews...maybe even better than ever before. Fake News needs the competition! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2017

The White House has not said whether President Trump and Bannon have spoken since Bannon was forced to resign from his post Friday as chief strategist.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the departure, effective Friday, was "mutually agreed" upon by Bannon and Chief of Staff John Kelly.

"We are grateful for his service and wish him the best," Sanders said in a statement to ABC News.

A source close to Trump told ABC News it was ultimately the president's decision to dismiss Bannon. The message was delivered this morning from Kelly, who was with the president at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. Bannon was at the White House when he received the call that it was time for him to leave.

Bannon had submitted a letter of resignation to the president earlier this month with an effective date of Monday, Aug. 14, according to sources close to both Bannon and Trump. But amid the fallout from Trump's controversial response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend and earlier this week, Bannon's Aug. 14 resignation date came and went as the president considered Bannon's future, sources said. Meanwhile, several top Trump aides continued to make the case that he needed to go.

Prior to joining the Trump administration, Bannon served as executive chairman of Breitbart News. On Friday evening, in the top story on its homepage, Breitbart announced Bannon's return to the media company to again serve as executive chairman.

"'Populist Hero’ Stephen K. Bannon Returns Home to Breitbart," reads the headline.

Bannon has clashed with virtually every top official in the White House. Atop his list of in-house detractors were senior adviser Jared Kushner, national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Chief of Staff Kelly.

One of McMaster's first moves was to remove Bannon from his seat at the National Security Council, a move that angered him. And his appointment as the council's chief political strategist was hugely controversial when it was first announced via executive order at the start of the administration.

Over the weekend, McMaster refused to say whether he would continue to work with Bannon.

Bannon joined the Trump campaign in August. He would become known as a fearless and critically influential adviser to the president, but has now become the latest high-profile aide to leave the White House. On July 21, press secretary Sean Spicer resigned, followed by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci was fired a few days later, serving just 11 days in that role.

On Tuesday, the president told reporters at Trump Tower that Bannon was a "good man” and “not a racist.”

"I like Mr. Bannon. He's a friend of mine. But Mr. Bannon came on very late. You know that. I went through 17 senators, governors, and I won all the primaries. Mr. Bannon came on very much later than that," Trump said before adding, "but we'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon."

Trump had grown increasingly frustrated with Bannon in recent weeks, according to one senior White House official, and dissatisfaction from within Trump's inner circle was compounded Wednesday by his interview in American Prospect magazine, in which he seemed to undercut the president on North Korea.

"There's no military solution here, they got us," Bannon told the magazine.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Bannon confirmed rumors shared with ABC News by a source close to the former chief strategist that he would continue to work in the president's interests.

"If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents -- on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,” Bannon told Bloomberg News.

After news of Bannon's demise first went viral, Breitbart's editor tweeted an ominous message: "#WAR." </s> WASHINGTON --President Donald Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon has been fired, two White House officials told CNN Friday.

A source told CNN that Bannon was given the option to resign but was forced out. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Bannon's departure but did not say whether he was fired or resigned.

"White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best," Sanders said in a statement.

The President has privately stewed over Bannon in recent days, including Thursday night from his golf course in New Jersey. He was furious with his chief strategist after he was quoted in an interview with the American Prospect contradicting him on North Korea and asserting that he was able to make personnel changes at the State Department.

Bannon's exit comes just seven months after Trump took office and three weeks after retired Gen. John Kelly took over as chief of staff, looking to instill order in a chaotic White House beset by internal divisions, staff infighting and a storm of controversies.

Bannon's exit meant one of the White House's most controversial staffers, the man generally perceived as the driving force behind Trump's "nationalist" ideology, would no longer be at the center of the Trump universe.

Bannon joined Trump's campaign last year, moving from the sidelines as one of Trump's top cheerleaders to a position atop his campaign apparatus.

He did not travel with the President during the first week of what White House officials described as a "working vacation" at Trump's golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. Instead Bannon remained in Washington to work out of a temporary office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Bannon was supposed to be fired two weeks ago, a White House official told CNN's Jeff Zeleny, but it was put off.

CNN reports the President equivocated after an initial plan was to fire Bannon and then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus at same time, the official says, because Rep. Mark Meadows, the influential chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, and others urged Trump to keep him on board.

The interview this week was enough for Meadows to change his view, a person close to him says.

The question now is whether Bannon will be an ally or a thorn in the side of the Trump administration outside the White House, where he is likely to return to his role as head of Breitbart, the right-wing news site he ran until he joined Trump's campaign a year ago.

In the administration, Bannon frequently butted heads with other advisers to the president, feuding with son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and other more moderate members of the President's administration whom Bannon branded as "globalists."

Bannon was often suspected by colleagues of badmouthing them to reporters and he rubbed colleagues the wrong way by attempting to ramrod his ideological positions.

"Steve was never a team player," a senior administration official said.

Bannon viewed himself as the populist defender of Trump's campaign promises in the White House, working daily to tick off items from the list of promises that hung on the walls of his West Wing office.

Bannon focused especially on pushing a hardline trade agenda, recently working to cue up a series of trade policies to aggressively target Chinese foreign trade abuses and work toward rebalancing the trading relationship between the US and China.

The fiery chief strategist also led the charge against proposals by national security officials to deepen US military involvement in Afghanistan, feuding vocally during meetings of the National Security Council with national security adviser H.R. McMaster and working behind the scenes to water down hawkish proposals for troop increases and a longer-term US military commitment.

The President is meeting Friday with members of his national security team at Camp David to consider options for the future of the US war in Afghanistan as he nears a decision, but Bannon is not there -- and was not scheduled to be based on a list of attendees the White House sent out Friday morning. </s> Steve Bannon is out as White House chief strategist, ABC News has learned.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
Steve Bannon resigns as President Donald Trump's White House Chief Strategist.