On this day 30 years ago, former President Richard Nixon wrote to a future president, Donald Trump, offering words of encouragement should he ever run for political office.

The letter, dated Dec. 21, 1987, references Nixon's wife, former first lady Pat Nixon, who watched an interview Trump took part in on television and subsequently predicted that the businessman would be a "winner" should ever choose to campaign.

“Dear Donald, I did not see the program but Mrs. Nixon told me that you were great on ‘The Donahue Show,’" Nixon wrote.

“As you can imagine, she is an expert on politics and she predicts that whenever you decide to run for office you will be a winner!”

In 1987, the Nixons predicted @realDonaldTrump would win whenever he ran for office. Photo courtesy @nixonfoundation #PresidentElectTrump pic.twitter.com/hICGWZL6MJ — Archives Foundation (@archivesfdn) November 9, 2016



The letter was made public in a Trump biography by Michael D'Antonio in 2015, and Trump spoke about it to Fox News during an interview in November 2016, calling the correspondence "amazing."