The audience didn't seem to see it this way.
I just don't know why the audience seemed to be all his Repub election deniers. Why didn't they balance that group?
I read about that this morning. Now that you mention it, i’ll post what I found:
Questions also linger over what the network offered the ex-president in exchange for what some called a Trump infomercial
www.theguardian.com
… Trump campaign appears to have got what it wanted out of the CNN town hall in part because it negotiated the terms of the event with an unusual degree of leverage, according to multiple people familiar with how the planning unfolded.
For starters, Trump’s team for months played hard to get with CNN – which first reached out to do a town hall almost as soon as Trump announced his 2024 candidacy. However, the campaign had always been more likely to go with CNN over NBC or Fox News, the other major networks in talks to host an event.
The campaign already had pro-Trump commentators and surrogates appearing on Fox News shows, and while MSNBC has recently had higher ratings than CNN, the liberal network was seen by advisers as being inhospitable ground compared with the Licht-era CNN that has tried to cater more to Republicans.
Trump’s team also figured that CNN worked for its needs because it could have Collins as the moderator, a rising star who co-hosts the network’s morning show but has also remained on the Trump beat and has taken care to preserve her relationship with the ex-president.
Pairing Collins with Republicans who mostly voted for Trump in 2020 was as close to home turf as the campaign could get. The team said it would have rejected Jake Tapper,
after he threatened to ban Republicans who endorsed Trump’s 2020 election lies from his shows.
The campaign also made sure the pre- and post-town hall coverage featured Trump surrogates on air. Among the bookings: former Trump White House press aide Hogan Gidley, pro-Trump congressmen Brian Mast and Byron Donalds, as well as pro-Trump senator JD Vance.
A spokesperson for CNN denied that the network made any formal agreement to book surrogates as guests in order to host of the town hall.