Pope’s brother meets President Trump at White House
The Catholic Herald• May 21, 2025
President Donald Trump has met the eldest brother of Pope Leo XIV at the White House.
The meeting with Louis Prevost, 73, took place on Tuesday, 20 May. Earlier in the day, while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump said that he likes Pope Leo XIV, 69, and was looking forward to meeting the Pope’s brother later that day, reports the US-based Catholic News Agency (CNA).
“I like the pope and I like the pope’s brother,” Trump told reporters, while noting that the Pope’s elder brother “is a major MAGA fan” (alluding to the “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan).
“I look forward to getting him to the White House,” Trump said. “I want to shake his hand. I want to give him a big hug.”
A photo posted late on Tuesday night to X by Margo Martin, the president’s special assistant, shows Trump and Vice President JD Vance with Louis Prevost and his wife, Deborah, in the oval office.
Louis Prevost, a Florida resident and US Navy veteran, sat beside Second Lady Usha Vance, the wife of the US vice-president, at Pope Leo’s inauguration Mass on Sunday, May 18. He also joined Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio when the US delegation met with his younger brother, the Pope, on 19 May.
After Pope Leo XIV was elected, becoming the first US-born pope in history, Louis Prevost did several media interviews expressing his happiness for his younger brother – Louis is 73 years old to his younger brother’s 69 years of age – and his confidence in his fair leadership, CNA notes.
This was followed by some media outlets finding social media posts by Louis that evidenced strong support for Trump and criticism of Democrats along with comments on issues such as transgenderism.
In an interview on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” that aired on 12 May, Louis responded to criticism he had received in response to some of his derogatory comments he had made about Democrats.
“I posted it and I wouldn’t have posted it if I didn’t kind of believe it,” he said. “However, I had no idea that what was coming [my brother becoming pope] was coming this soon and I can tell you, since then, I’ve been very quiet, biting my tongue.
“I don’t want to create waves that don’t need to be there because I’m a MAGA type and I have my beliefs,” he said. “I don’t need to create heat for [my brother]. He’s going to have enough to handle as it is without the press going ‘the pope’s brother says this.’ He doesn’t need that.”
The Pope has another elder brother, John. According to an article in the popular US entertainment magazine People, Louis said that when the siblings were younger, the two elder brothers used to tease their younger brother, saying, “You’re going to be the pope one day … he just had it about him.”
When the US delegation met with Pope Leo XIV, Vance handed the new pontiff a letter from Trump that invited him to the United States for a meeting at the White House. The Pope said he would make the visit “at some point”, CNA reports.
It also notes that Vance told Leo “we’ll pray for you” and said: “As you can probably imagine, in the United States the people are extremely excited.”
Photo: Louis Prevost speaks during an AFP interview following his brother, Robert Prevost, being elected Pope Leo XIV, in Port Charlotte, Florida, USA, 9 May 2025. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images.)