Just hours after announcing the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, President Obama accepted a second resignation, this one from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. Carney served as Obama’s press secretary for three and a half year.

President Obama interrupted Carney as Carney was beginning his daily news conference today and announced that Carney was stepping down. Obama said at the briefing, “Jay has become one of my closest friends and is a great Press Secretary, and a great advisor, he’s got good judgment, he has a good temperament, and he’s got a good heart, and I’m going to miss him a lot.”

Carney has faced the press in the briefing room and has been grilled on many subjects, including the attacks on Benghazi and the rollout of Obamacare and all of its site mishaps, and fielded many difficult questions from his former colleagues in the press industry. Carney headed the White House Bureau for the Time magazine as chief before joining the White House staff.

President Obama also announced his new press secretary saying, “Today the flak jacket is officially passed to a new generation, Mr. Josh Earnest.” Earnest was Carney’s deputy press secretary and worked as Obama’s Iowas Communication Director while Oabama was working to garner the Democratic nomination.

Earnest said after his introduction, “I am grateful and excited and relish the opportunity to spend the next couple of years working with you as you work to do that very important work. And that job in this aggregated media world has never been more difficult, but I would argue that it has never been more important.”

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