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

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

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 supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise 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 Trump’s administration.”

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

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science 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 spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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