President Trump at the White House on Thursday. Senior administration officials have been working since December on a proposed second-term agenda.
Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated PressWASHINGTON—President Trump has been asked twice in the past two weeks to outline his priorities for a second term. He didn’t directly answer the question either time.
Less than five months before the election, Mr. Trump has yet to publicly lay out a detailed vision for the next four years, instead touting what he marks as first-term achievements and arguing that his presumptive Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, will undo many of the policies he has already put in place.
When The Wall Street Journal asked him last week to identify one new initiative he would undertake in his second term, Mr. Trump pointed to actions taken over the past three years and said he would focus on rebuilding the economy without naming specific policy plans.
On Thursday, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the president about his top priorities for a second term. Mr. Trump responded by saying he has built strong relationships in Washington, then moved on to criticize his former national security adviser, John Bolton.
“Now I know everybody—and I have great people in the administration,” Mr. Trump said.
The overlapping crises of a global pandemic, an economic downturn and widening social unrest have complicated efforts by the administration to craft a second-term agenda.
Mr. Trump once hoped that the booming economy would ease his path to a second term, allowing him to make the argument that voters should expect more of the same if he is re-elected. Now, Mr. Trump may need to make the case that things will change if he wins in November.
“A campaign centered on more of the same—it’s not just out of step, it’s fatal,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden, who worked for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns.
Mr. Trump rarely talks about what a second term might look like in his public remarks. In campaign speeches in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday and in Phoenix this week, he ticked through his first-term actions.
With the election approaching and Mr. Trump trailing Mr. Biden in many polls, some of the president’s allies have said privately they hope the president begins to speak more regularly about what he would deliver for voters if he wins re-election.
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The president’s senior advisers said they expected that he would begin to do that in the coming weeks. He has been more focused on day-to-day matters than long-term planning, they said.
“The president is sort of singularly focused right now on dealing with the virus that’s still with us, and getting Americans back to work,” a senior administration official said. “Now that doesn’t mean that extensive legwork isn’t being done.”
Since December, senior administration officials have been meeting to craft an agenda for the second term. They have set up working groups focused on top-line themes including health care, infrastructure, trade, education and the economy, administration officials said.
The discussions are being organized by Chris Liddell, the White House’s deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, and include National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, senior adviser Jared Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows and acting Domestic Policy Council Director Brooke Rollins, the officials said.
Officials said the agenda is expected to focus first on the economy, with the goal of getting the economy back to where it was before the pandemic by the first quarter of next year.
“Before the booming economy was artificially interrupted by an unprecedented pandemic, President Trump’s pro-growth policies, tax cuts, and deregulation delivered record economic success—and he’ll do it again,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager said.
The president’s aides are projecting confidence that the economy will turn around. They are facing a recent uptick in coronavirus cases that could result in more economic damage, while the president has lost two of his top economic advisers over the last two weeks.
In recent months, Mr. Trump has occasionally pointed to policy issues he hopes to tackle in a second term, including additional criminal justice reform measures and replacing the Affordable Care Act. White House officials have so far been unable to come up with a health-care plan.
The president also lamented in the recent Journal interview that the big-ticket spending required to respond to the pandemic and the economic downturn undercut his plans to focus on cutting the debt in a second term.
“Well, it would have been much different if you asked me that question three months ago, because the economy was really rocking and I would have been cutting debt. I would have been cutting expenses. I would have been cutting a lot of things,” he said.
Other issues that White House officials said they hoped to focus on in a second term include bilateral trade deals, lowering prescription drug prices, investing in infrastructure and boosting the military.
Senior aides are also discussing pushing for an overhaul of the country’s immigration system, though such a move would likely face headwinds in Congress.
The administration is discussing a series of executive orders for the president to sign in the first 100 days, an administration official said.
The White House is increasingly using executive orders to illustrate that the president can get things accomplished without Congress. The president signed an order on Friday that intends to make it easier for those without college degrees to be hired by the federal government.
White House officials said federal hiring procedures would be modified to include more skills assessments and interviews with subject-matter experts to determine whether a candidate is qualified for a job, rather than looking for a college degree.
“As the president continues to lead a whole-of-government response to a global pandemic, restore law and order to our communities, and rebuild the economy, the White House is engaged in an ongoing policy process for a bold second-term agenda that continues the Transition to Greatness,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said.
During the Democratic primaries, Mr. Biden often warned audiences that Mr. Trump would take a number of steps if re-elected such as pulling the U.S. out of the NATO alliance, using rising deficits as a justification for cutting Social Security and appointing more Republican-leaning judges to the federal judiciary.
He has also accused Mr. Trump of inaction. On Thursday, Mr. Biden used a speech in Lancaster, Pa., to assail what he called Mr. Trump’s “senseless crusade against health care” by pushing for the repeal of the Obamacare law.
“He may have failed to offer the American people any form of coherent message or agenda for a second term, but one thing is certain—he has proved that one would be a nightmare,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said.
—Ken Thomas contributed to this article.
Write to Andrew Restuccia at Andrew.Restuccia@wsj.com
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