Overview
- Brian N. Warner, head of legal for Madison Square Garden Sports, sent a cease-and-desist Friday night demanding that Aber Kawas’ campaign immediately remove promotional materials that use Knicks intellectual property and cease further use.
- The letter says the campaign’s altered logo—which uses the Knicks’ orange-and-blue palette, font and a basketball graphic with the word “Kawas”—likely causes false association and amounts to trademark infringement, dilution, false advertising and unfair competition.
- Kawas’ campaign posted the ‘I Voted for Aber Kawas’ design on June 20 as part of get-out-the-vote materials, and the campaign had not publicly confirmed compliance with the Knicks’ demand at the time of reporting.
- Kawas told Fox News she was speaking about the wrongful scapegoating of Muslim Americans when earlier remarks about 9/11 resurfaced, a controversy that has heightened scrutiny of her candidacy after she won the Democratic nomination in District 12.
- The move repeats a prior episode in which Mayor Zohran Mamdani pulled a Knicks-style ad after a similar legal warning and deepens a public rift between MSG owner James Dolan and the mayor’s allies; trademark law and protections for political speech will shape whether the team can force removal and whether the dispute affects Kawas’ messaging and voter support.