Maga Supporters Endorse Bukele's Call for US President to Target American Judges

Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send 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

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state 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 allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes and failures. 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 claims of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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