Pat Buchanan — pundit, assistant to three presidents, best-selling author, and three-time presidential candidate — deserves the Medal of Freedom, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., declared last week.

In a letter to President Donald Trump, Schmitt called on him to award the famed conservative trailblazer the top civilian honor, saying, "[Buchanan] was a prophetic voice on the defining issues of our time: Immigration, trade, foreign policy, and the 'cultural war' that the Left was waging in America. While these issues were ignored or dismissed for decades by Washington, they were all too real for Americans in towns like the one I grew up in."

Historians and political reporters have increasingly pointed out that Buchanan, in his two bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996 and as the Reform Party nominee in 2000, essentially paved the way for Trump's eventual election in 2016. 

The four themes laid out by Buchanan were successfully deployed by Trump two decades later: a halt to illegal immigration ("The Trump border wall was first the 'Buchanan ditch,'" the pundit-politician once told Newsmax), no more endless wars, a hard line on trade and the strong use of tariffs, and standing up to political correctness.

Now 86 and in declining health, Buchanan said he has "hung up my pen" and has neither written nor given interviews for a couple of years. But Schmitt's letter makes clear that he is not forgotten among conservatives and Trump supporters, who want Buchanan honored.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.