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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive 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 taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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