Maga Figures Back Bukele's Call for US President to Target US Judges

Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats 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 alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial 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. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

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

Government Goals

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