(CNN) President Donald Trump wants to be appreciated.

"We've done a fantastic job," he said Tuesday of his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. "The only thing we haven't done well is to get good press. We've done a fantastic job but it hasn't been appreciated. Even the closing down of the borders, which had never been done, and not only did we close them but we closed it early. The press doesn't like writing about it."

Which tells you a whole lot about him.

In Trump's world of celebrity and reality TV, an action doesn't really exist unless people acknowledge it. You are defined not by your actions but by people noticing your actions and the media covering your actions.

Now, we can debate -- and historians will debate -- whether Trump's actions in regard to the coronavirus should be praised or panned.

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