Trump Supporters Endorse Bukele's Call for US President to Crack Down on US Judiciary

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

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power 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 highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

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

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently