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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

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

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone 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 federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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