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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

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

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models 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 courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments 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 global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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