What Was CNN Thinking (Bringing Trump to a Townhall)?

After viewing the hour....I came to ponder....why the hell would CNN go and do something like this.  I came to three conclusions:

1.  They probably thought....right after the court episode, that Trump would be highly embarrassed and they could slam him in some way.

Note: from what I saw....he wasn't embarrassed, and the brief interaction with the CNN moderator on this topic....well, it went south for the lady.  

2.  They figured at his age (76), that he would be dull-witted like Joe Biden.  

On that, they guessed wrong in a pretty serious way.  Trying to offer the same townhall deal to President Biden?  I think he's pushed into a corner now....having to show up and do some promotion.

3.  In their mind, using New Hampshire would surely bring up mostly left-of-center independent voters, and fairly tough questions. 

On this matter....I would agree that the questions were realistic, blunt, and weren't filled with opinion-chatter.  Trump answered every single one of them, without much of a stumble.  

On this left-of-center independent voter thing...it's really not helping President Biden because of the far-left chatter he's offered for the past two years.  

So I'll just say this....CNN probably had the highest level of a audience of the past five years, and rather shocked how viewers accepted the townhall chatter.