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The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national 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.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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