LOS ANGELES — Jimmy Kimmel is no defender of democracy.

At least he turned down the title when a reporter suggested he might be.

“Those are heavy thoughts and I have a tendency to reject them,” he said backstage this weekend at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. “I don’t really feel like I’m defending democracy.”

He said he's doing something much smaller when he lays into President Donald Trump.

“I’m giving this guy a little poke, and he deserves it, and I enjoy it, and I hope that people enjoy it too,” Kimmel said.

Kimmel, 57, spoke he was holding his fourth Primetime Emmy Award, this one for best game show host for his helming of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” He's up for another Sunday for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

However, Kimmel is a defender of Stephen Colbert — and voted for him too.

When his friend and fellow late-night host Colbert had his “Late Show” canceled in July, three days after criticizing a settlement between Trump and CBS parent company Paramount Global as it was seeking administration approval for a merger, Kimmel cursed CBS and shared his love for Colbert.

Later he erected a billboard in Los Angeles declaring “I'm voting for Stephen,” throwing his endorsement to his opponent in their Emmy race in the talk series category.

“CBS, all of a sudden out of the blue, claimed ‘The Late Show’ was losing $40 million a year and then miraculously got FCC approval to sell their company, which is what they wanted,” Kimmel said.

He also responded to Trump, who posted on Truth Social, “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next,” Trump wrote. “Has even less talent than Colbert.”

“Oh, you delicate, chubby little teacup, did we hurt your feelings?” Kimmel said on his show. “You want us to be canceled because we make jokes about you. I thought you were against cancel culture.”

Somehow none of Kimmel's Emmys are for the late-night show he's hosted for 22 years — though most of his 27 nominations are. He’s also a three-time Emmys host — a job that goes to Nate Bargatze this year.

And he won a daytime Emmy as best game show host for his work on Comedy Central's “Win Ben Stein's Money” in 1999.

Asked how long he plans to keep his current talk show going, he was vague.

“I’m not prepared to answer that question, but it is something I think about a lot,” he said. “Each day is a new adventure, and I kind of take them as they come. Is that a good way of dodging the question?”

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Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce help soft-open steakhouse with Patrick Mahomes

Newly engaged Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce kicked off the week at the soft-opening of his new Kansas City steakhouse with Patrick Mahomes.

Swift wore a denim dress as she and the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, both 35, held hands upon arriving to 1587 Prime Steakhouse on Monday.

The stars reportedly enjoyed a “low-key but affectionate” evening as they mingled with Kelce’s teammates, as well as Mahomes’ wife, Brittany, insiders told TMZ.

The singer — who even has a signature cocktail on the menu named after her song “The Alchemy” — was seen holding the Mahomes’ baby and playing with their older kids.

Swift’s bespoke drink features vodka, dry curaçao, aronia berry, cranberry, strawberry, lime and oolong. Kelce’s “Big Yeti” cocktail combines Gentleman’s Cut Bourbon, Bulleit Rye, nocino, demerara and bitters.

Swift and Kelce, who have been dating since summer 2023, announced their engagement last month.

The nuptials “will definitely be a private affair and not a spectacle,” a source told People this week.

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Blake Lively seeking millions in damages, attorney fees from Justin Baldoni

NEW YORK — Blake Lively is seeking millions of dollars in damages and attorneys’ fees from her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star Justin Baldoni, over his since-dismissed “baseless” $400 million defamation lawsuit.

The “Gossip Girl” alum claimed in late 2024 Baldoni sexually harassed her on the set of their film and launched a retaliatory smear campaign, both of which he denies.

On Monday, Lively filed a motion seeking attorneys’ fees, treble damages and punitive damages from Baldoni under a California statute that makes privileged any “communication … regarding an incident of sexual assault, harassment or discrimination [including retaliation],” and “remedy the substantial harm” incurred amid the legal battle, according to court documents obtained by Variety.

Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios, which produced the film, “stoked the flames of public sentiment, posting their retaliatory lawsuit on a public website … to flood the zone with vicious character attacks on Ms. Lively designed to damage her credibility and to conceal their own unlawful acts” and “sue Ms. Lively into oblivion,'” reads the filing.

When tossing Baldoni’s countersuit against Lively in June — along with his$250 million libel lawsuit against The New York Times— Judge Lewis Liman “did not rule on whether Ms. Lively’s alleged statements were privileged” under the statute “or whether Ms. Lively acted with actual malice,” as Baldoni’s camp has claimed.

Liman did, however, permit Lively to “renew” her motion for the fees and damages under the statute.

Lively’s lawsuit is heading to trial in March.

From combined wire services