Tomorrow night, CNN will host a town hall forum for former President Donald Trump at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. That’s a sentence I would never have pictured myself typing during this election cycle, but it’s apparently true. Kaitlan Collins has been chosen to moderate the event and she’s the person the Associated Press focused on when covering the upcoming event, slated for 8 pm Eastern. Why was she chosen? Will she be able to handle it? Why were other, more experienced CNN figures like Jake Tapper passed over? Personally, I think there are a number of other questions we should be asking and we’ll get to those in a moment.

Donald Trump’s town hall forum on CNN on Wednesday is the first major television event of the 2024 presidential campaign — and a gigantic test for the chosen moderator, Kaitlan Collins.

Both sides of the political divide expressed suspicion when the CNN forum at New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College was announced last week. Some Democrats question whether the former president should be given the airtime, while Republicans wonder if a network Trump has long disparaged can be fair.

Once it begins, Collins must give audience members the chance to ask questions while determining when to step in with her own.

Candidates need to soak up some earned media when they get the opportunity, so it’s not like there’s no reason for Trump to do this. But there is also absolutely no question about the relationship between Trump and CNN. The network doesn’t simply disagree with Trump or prefer another candidate. They hate the Bad Orange Man with a burning passion. And Trump has made no secret of the fact that he thinks CNN is garbage.

As for Kaitlan Collins, she used to report for the Daily Caller with a more conservative slant. Is that why she was chosen? She certainly seems to have “migrated” a bit since her days there (which happens to far too many formerly conservative journalists and activists who move there) but she generally doesn’t act like an activist. I went back and watched this interview she did last month with Vivek Ramaswamy when she was filling in on State of the Union. She asked some non-softball questions about wokeness and other candidates, but she remained professional and let him finish all of his answers. Perhaps she’ll do well tomorrow night.

How well will Trump be received at St. Anselm College? There have already been some protests, but the administration is defending the decision. Also, St. Anselm is a religious college with a seemingly larger conservative base. At one point, students there held a protest against vaccine mandates, so we’re definitely not talking about a place like Berkeley, or at least not entirely. Since we’re talking about Donald Trump, there will obviously be protests. There always are. But so long as they manage to keep them outside of the town hall, it could be a productive evening.

Let’s also consider the startling contrast we will almost certainly see between Trump and Joe Biden, assuming he remains in the race. Can you imagine Biden standing up there and taking unscripted questions from an audience that may not like him all that much for two hours? The gaffs and verbal missteps would provide Fox News with material for days. Meanwhile, if his recent interviews are anything to go by, Trump will remain sharp and keep taking questions both hostile and friendly well into the night.

So yes, this probably looks like an odd choice for Trump to make. But if it expands his audience beyond the venues where he is normally greeted with cheers, perhaps it will work out for him. I don’t usually watch these evening events, but I’m planning to tune in for this one and hoping for the best.