My thinking is along the same line. Biden shows up the actual town residents are prevented from being near the event. Biden buses in hundreds of actors to be supporters. He delivers some platitudes about how aide is still being delivered and how everyone had been so well supported and protected by his administration. Media gets their sound bites and pictures of the actors cheering for him. Biden rolls out of town and media pretends it was all legit. Now they believe East Palestine is no longer a negative on their approval numbers.

We all know nobody in Biden admin expects or cares about convincing anyone in East Palestine (or more generally Ohio) to vote for him. Instead they will just force the town to become a prop for his election disinformation campaign. With a complicit old guard media, they figure the truth won't get far enough to reverse the positive publicity they believe it will bring.