Axios

President Trump plans to pare back his coronavirus press conferences, according to four sources familiar with the internal deliberations.

• He may stop appearing daily and make shorter appearances when he does, the sources said — a practice that may have started with Friday's unusually short briefing.

Multiple states are preparing to plunge into the unknown with partial coronavirus reopenings for non-essential businesses, and Georgia and Oklahoma will lead the way.

Why it matters: We have no idea how this will go, but experts emphasize that prematurely lifting the lockdowns could create a surge in new cases.

President Trump threatened on Friday to veto any new coronavirus legislation that includes funding for the U.S. Postal Service if it doesn't raise the price large companies, like Amazon, pay for a package "by approximately four times."

Why it matters: USPS is facing widening losses amid the coronavirus pandemic and could run out of money by the end of year if Congress fails to rescue it in the next stimulus package.

Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller on Thursday told surrogates in a private call that President Trump's 60-day order banning some legal immigration will shepherd more long-term changes to U.S. immigration policy, the Washington Post reports.

Why it matters: Trump's new executive order was publicly described as a “pause” amid the coronavirus outbreak. Miller, a known advocate for more restrictive immigration policy during Trump's tenure, told surrogates the White House is considering tightening guest worker programs, but said "the most important thing is to turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor.”

Fox News' Bret Baier on Friday doubted President Trump's claim that he was being sarcastic when he said disinfectants and UV light may be used to treat patients infected with the coronavirus.

What they're saying: During an interview, Fox News' Melissa Francis noted the president said he was “being sarcastic by posing a question to reporters, he claims that he did not ask medical experts to look into it. He was simply asking a sarcastic question.”

Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee signed Friday onto a joint fundraising pact, AP reports.

Why it matters: The measure allows individual donors to contribute up to $360,600 — a huge jump from the $5,600 maximum that an individual can donate to his campaign.

President Trump said Friday that he answered "sarcastically" during a White House task force briefing when he said that disinfectants may be used to treat coronavirus.

The state of play: During a signing for the interim coronavirus funding bill, the president told reporters that he "was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen" with the response, per a pool report.

President Trump signed a $484 billion interim coronavirus relief bill on Friday that will add another $310 billion to the small-business Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), as well as provide billions in aid to hospitals and for testing.

What's next: Now that the bill has been signed into law, Congress and the Trump administration will focus on how quickly that money, particularly the replenished PPP funds, can get out the door.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Thursday during a virtual fundraiser that he thinks President Trump may try to postpone the 2020 general election because "that’s the only way he thinks he can possibly win," per a pool report.

The big picture: Trump has previously made false claims that alternatives to in-person voting, like mail-in ballots, are rigged, but Biden said he wants Congress to provide alternatives so Americans feel safe heading to the polls amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Merger activity has slowed to a trickle, but it's a raging river compared to what could be coming if some in Congress get their way.

Driving the news: Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who chairs House Judiciary's antitrust subcommittee, yesterday proposed a moratorium on all M&A activity outside of situations in which companies are bankrupt or on the brink of insolvency.

Matt Whitaker, who became acting attorney general after President Trump canned Jeff Sessions, will be out May 19 with a book titled: "Above the Law: The Inside Story of How the Justice Department Tried to Subvert President Trump."

Why it matters: It's not every day — or every decade — that a former head of a department accuses his old workplace of trying to sabotage the president.

Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of disinfectants Lysol and Dettol, released a statement Friday that its products cannot be injected or ingested to combat coronavirus after President Trump suggested the possibility during Thursday's task force briefing.

What Trump said: "I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."

President Trump's declaration about directing the Navy to "shoot down and destroy" Iranian gunboats brings to a head his years of urging military leaders to get tougher on Iranian harassment at sea.

Why it matters: Now — unlike in the days when James Mattis ran the Defense Department and often ignored what he viewed as intemperate orders from Trump — the president faces no meaningful resistance from his national security team.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of expanding grounds for deportation to include legal immigrants who have committed certain serious crimes within at least seven years of arrival in the country.

The big picture: The court voted 5-4 with conservatives in the majority to interpret a 1996 law as allowing the deportation of currently legal residents who've committed specified crimes before reaching an "inadmissible" period. That timeframe begins after an individual has been a legal resident for seven years.