Ex-Giants player attacks Democrat Minneapolis mayor candidate compared to Zohran Mamdani

Former New York Giants player Carter Coughlin has launched a savage attack on the Democratic party's Omar Fateh, who is running for mayor in Minneapolis.

Coughlin grew up in Minnesota and played for the Golden Gophers, based in Minneapolis, during his college football years.

Coughlin said Fateh's policies of rent control and raising minimum wage would set Minneapolis back years in an impassioned message on Sunday. He also debated Fateh's credibility to become mayor with some of his followers.

'In a city that has endured unimaginable destruction and racial tension, these policies would set Minneapolis back another 10 steps,' Coughlin wrote. 'MPLS (Minneapolis) needs rebuilding, and this will do the opposite. Pray for wisdom.'

In his replies, the 28-year-old Coughlin clashed mostly with people who supported Fateh's rent control policy.

'I’d encourage you to take time to look into what rent control does to city development years down the road,' he wrote back to one follower. 

'No one wants to build, to grow, to improve because the economics don’t work. Subsidize low income housing and provide tax funding for those specific developments.'

In a different response, Coughlin said: 'Designated low income housing by definition is rent controlled, which is great. 

'Applying rent control to the entire city gridlocks all development. The city deteriorates. These policies only “fix” the symptoms, not the actual problems.' 

His comments come after Fateh received an endorsement from the Democratic Farmer-Labor party. 

The Somali-born Fateh, 35, became the first Somali-American to be voted into the Minnesota Senate in 2020 and his policies have seen him draw comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the 2025 Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York.

After his college days with the Gophers, Coughlin was picked in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL Draft by the Giants.

In his first season, he recorded his career sack on none other than Tom Brady.

He went on to play 55 regular season games from the Giants from 2020 until 2023 but last year, was on the practice squad.