Maga Supporters Endorse Bukele's Plea for Trump to Crack Down on American Judges

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

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

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 in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal 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 co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home 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 guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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