Maga Figures Endorse Bukele's Call for US President to Target US Judiciary

Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently 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 “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his followers 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 highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high 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 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, 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 residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism 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