Trump Figures Endorse Bukele's Plea for Trump to Target American Judges

The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

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

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples 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 laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize 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 emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions 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, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders 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 aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. 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.”

Government Goals

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