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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

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 such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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