Trump Supporters Endorse El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Target US Judiciary

The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently