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The US President rarely accepts advice, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders 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 one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, 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 in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently