Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images.

White House Press Secretary and noted Guided By Voices superfan Jay Carney has stepped down from his position, President Barack Obama announced today. Earlier today, VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki also resigned in the midst of intense controversy of VA hospital waits. Carney’s resignation, however, comes as a surprise.

Carney, who was promoted to be Obama’s chief spokesman in 2011, replacing former spokesman Robert Gibbs, will be replaced by deputy spokesman Josh Earnest. According to the Post, the surprise announcement was made when Obama cut off Carney while he was answering a question about Ukraine. Carney said he’d be leaving the job formally in mid-to-late June.

“Jay has become one of my closest friends and is a great press secretary and a great adviser,” Obama said during the briefing. “He’s got good judgement, he has good temperament and he’s got a good heart. And I’m going to miss him a lot. I will continue to rely on him as a friend, an adviser after he leaves to spend as much of his summer as he can with his kids before he decides what’s next for him.”

So what’s next for Carney? He hasn’t said what he’s going to do next, so we can only speculate that he’s going to go on tour with GBV as a guitar tech/permanent hype man. Or maybe he’ll go on to manage his 12-year-old son Hugo’s band? Who knows.

In the meantime, bask in the glory of this awkward hug shared between Carney and Obama: