Morgan, the executive vice president of the Heritage Foundation, received a warm welcome from Dean Jennifer Holmes of the UT Dallas School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences (EPPS). Meanwhile, a small crowd protested the policies his controversial far-right think tank had recommended to President-elect Donald Trump in its 900-plus-page Project 2025 guide. This is Morgan’s second public visit to UT Dallas this year; he attended the 20th UT Dallas alumni awards event earlier this year to receive a distinguished alumni award. Morgan’s goal for this visit was to unpack the presidential election and contextualize upcoming Republican policy.
Morgan’s visit was first announced by the EPPS school on Nov. 6 in its monthly email to students listing all of the events for the month of November; by Nov. 11, EPPS had posted an announcement on its official Instagram with an RSVP link for the event. Students and alumni immediately began leaving furious comments on the post, which was taken down within hours. Holmes said that once the RSVP limit had been reached, they opted to take down the post because there would be no need to advertise.
UTD’s branch of progressive student group Texas Rising had members RSVP to attend the event with the intent of asking Morgan critical questions. Texas Rising membership and outreach officer Leo Aimsila said that when they arrived at the room, a UTD police department officer asked them to stand to the side despite their RSVP. Aimsila said that as they waited, the officer let multiple professors and students into the room and when they asked when they could enter, the officer locked the door and said the room was full despite Aimsila stating that the room visibility still had open spots. Texas Rising helped the UTD chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) organize the student protest against Morgan’s presence on campus. YDSA President Poorvi Dhasmana said she was particularly angered by campus administration choosing to bring Morgan on to campus on GLAAD’s transgender day of remembrance.
“Inviting Morgan, who advocates for anti-queer and anti-immigrant stances, to a campus as diverse as ours really shows to me that campus administrators don’t care about the student body if they are willing to platform someone who is so staunchly against us just because they can,” Dhasmana said.
Texas Rising co-President Sara Hayes said students had sent a series of emails to EPPS leadership detailing their concerns about the event but received no response.
“Inviting [Morgan] to campus and giving space to the hate he creates, especially on transgender day of remembrance, is incredibly shameful and a huge step back for UT Dallas EPPS faculty,” Hayes said.
This isn't the first time the university has been criticized in recent months. UTD has been under fire from students, staff and free speech groups for its handling of the student-led pro-Palestine protests and encampment in May.
Unpacking the Election
Since his election victory, Trump has started to announce his picks for various cabinet positions. Among those involved with Project 2025 was Russ Vought, who authored the chapter on the Executive Office of the President. The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 are now set to play a key role in Trump’s administration, and Morgan spent 15 minutes discussing why he thinks the election went in favor of Trump.Morgan said that the focus group research conducted by the Heritage Project indicated that the economy would be the main issue voters considered this year.
“We kept hearing about gas, groceries and rent again and again,” Morgan said.
Trump saw only a 2-million increase in votes since 2020 and ended up with 49.87% of the vote, according to the most recent figures from the Cook Political Report, a leading election result aggregator. Morgan believes that this was a year in which Trump clearly improved his political standing with the electorate as Democrats faced a huge 7-million-voter decrease in support since 2020.
“I think that the story of this election is really the shifts in favor of Trump across the country,” Morgan said. “You see a much higher percentage leaning towards Trump in urban areas and traditionally Democratic strongholds in the Democratic base this year.”
Morgan said a large part of the Republican advantage this year came from the Democratic Party being too insistent on socially liberal policies like supporting LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policy. Morgan said the Democratic party should have listened more closely to political scientists such as Ruy Teixeira of the American Enterprise Institute, who advocated for the Democratic Party to drop its support for DEI and policies perceived as “woke” in an attempt to appeal to so-called American centrists.
Project 2025 and the First 100 days
Morgan and Holmes jumped between different policy topics for the remainder of the session, as Holmes curated some audience questions for Morgan throughout.“It is fascinating to watch all of the cabinet picks Trump is making,” Morgan said. “He is gathering his own Avengers team down in Florida to lead in his second term.”
Morgan said that while he did not align with the views of all of Trump’s picks, he saw it as a valuable disruption to the American system of government. Morgan said voters knew that Trump would be disruptive, and that dissatisfaction with the Biden administration meant they wanted to see the changes that would come about from Trump appointing non-traditional figures to high-ranking federal roles
With contentious midterms set for 2026, Morgan believes Trump should front-load his disruptive activity with the cabinet and his own economic policy. The Trump tax cuts from his first term are set to expire by the end of 2025, and Morgan believes that passing new tax cuts early in his term would be imperative for Trump if he wants to gain the windfall of support that he said typically arises from large-scale tax cuts.
Morgan does not believe that the U.S. currently has the infrastructure to mass-deport all undocumented immigrants, but he argued that it would be most effective for Trump to build up this capacity in gradual phases: first by closing and securing the border, then by deporting those Morgan considers “known criminals,” followed by increased scrutiny and review of all asylum claims, and a final push that further empowers local law enforcement to take anti-immigrant action.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), among dozens of other organizations, has criticized Project 2025 for instigating a wide-ranging attack against Americans through the hundreds of policy recommendations made by the Heritage Foundation that would restrict access to abortion nationwide, limit the ability for Americans to protest, impose newfound censorship within academic environments, limit voter accessibility, engage in mass deportations and roll back protections on trans rights to require institutional discrimination on a state and federal level.
