They met with him and gave him a photo op. They will be happy to leverage whatever positive publicity they can get these days, especially through a organization “representing” Orthodox Judaism.
I obviously don’t think that internally they take him seriously, they are just using him cynically and he is happy to play the fool. Also I don’t think a majority of people take him seriously, however we are dealing with a demographic that has a decent chunk of people with a tendency to blindly rely on “askanim” to guide them in matters which they don’t fully understand.