Trump Figures Endorse El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Crack Down on US Judges

The US President rarely accepts counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently