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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

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

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

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

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently