Trump Supporters Endorse Bukele's Plea for Trump to Target US Judges

The US President does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is observing at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently