Trump Supporters Back El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Crack Down on US Judiciary

The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

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

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability 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 court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently