Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, slammed independent Tennessee gubernatorial candidate David Hatley as a “blithering idiot,” questioning the candidate’s policy proposals on education, transportation, government spending, and public safety.
Leahy made the remarks during a discussion with The Star’s lead political reporter Tom Pappert during Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
During the segment, Pappert and Leahy discussed Hatley’s policy positions and revisited the candidate’s criminal history, including a Virginia misdemeanor conviction that was not disclosed in his memoir, Tested in Tennessee.
Hatley, who is challenging Republican gubernatorial nominee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn and Democratic nominee Memphis City Councilmember Jerri Green in the November 3 general election, previously disclosed a federal fraud conviction in his memoir but did not mention a separate Virginia conviction for misdemeanor petit larceny.
Lee County, Virginia, court records show Hatley pleaded guilty to the reduced misdemeanor charge in August 1999 after initially being indicted on felony charges. The records also show he was sentenced to 30 days in jail, suspended, and 12 months of unsupervised probation.
During Monday’s discussion, Pappert noted that Hatley was still under home confinement for his federal conviction when he pleaded guilty in Virginia.
“We don’t even know how on earth he managed to leave his home in the state of Tennessee to go to Virginia to wrap this up,” Pappert said.
Hatley’s campaign did not respond to The Star’s previous questions about the Virginia prosecution before publication.
Beyond his criminal history, Leahy also scrutinized Hatley’s proposals to establish a statewide auditor and assemble a team of experts to develop a 25-year transportation plan, arguing that the state already has agencies and programs performing those functions.
“That sounds like more expenses to me. I’ve never heard a conservative say, ‘We need a new government employee, somebody that the Constitution will even require to be elected so you can’t get rid of this person.’ That doesn’t sound very conservative,” Pappert said of Hatley’s proposal for a new government position.
Pappert added that the Tennessee Department of Transportation already maintains 25-year long-range plans and 10-year strategic investment programs.
“The same with his ‘let’s bring in a team of experts’ to create a 25-year plan. First of all, the Tennessee Department of Transportation already does this. They have 25-year long-range plans. They have 10-year strategic investment programs. So Hatley doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, or else he just wants more people to come in to get more of Tennessee taxpayers’ money,” he said.
Leahy questioned the practicality of Hatley’s proposed elected statewide auditor, noting that creating the office would require a constitutional amendment.
“It’s just nuts,” he said.
Pappert observed that the process could consume much of a governor’s term, saying, “all of his time is dedicated to getting the auditor that he needs in the first place.”
He also pointed to the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office as an existing institution that investigates government waste, fraud, and abuse.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t get a press release from the Tennessee Office of the Comptroller talking about waste, fraud, and abuse,” Pappert said. “So this is something that Tennessee already does very well, and that is, this seems to be the case with Mr. Hatley. He doesn’t know the state he’s campaigning in.”
The discussion then turned to Hatley’s opposition to continuing the Memphis Safe Task Force and to the state takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
The Memphis Safe Task Force announced Monday that it had surpassed 1,500 arrests for illegal narcotics offenses since its launch in September 2025. The multi-agency operation has made 13,876 arrests overall, including 147 homicide arrests and 1,372 arrests for firearms violations, while seizing 2,329 illegal firearms.
Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche credited the task force with helping reduce overall crime in Memphis by 34 percent from the previous year.
Leahy argued that Hatley’s opposition to both the task force and the state’s effort to take over Memphis-Shelby County Schools aligned him with left-wing Democrats.
“Anybody who looks at the miserable state of Memphis Shelby County Schools and opposes a state takeover is, and you can quote me on this, a blithering idiot,” Leahy said. “David Hatley is a blithering idiot. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Pappert said Hatley’s education comments on The Matt Murphy Show also raised concerns, particularly his proposal to assemble a team to determine what should be done for Memphis students.
On Friday’s edition of Murphy’s show on SuperTalk 99.7 WTN when asked if he supports a takeover of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Hatley said, “I think that someone’s got to do something. I mean, we’ve got to come up with a game plan for that whole entire Shelby County system, but I do think that we’ve got to help them right now, for sure.”
Pappert noted how Hatley did not directly answer whether he supports the state takeover, instead calling for a game plan to address the school system’s problems.
“There have been multiple lawsuits. They worked very strenuously to get the legal language of the law done perfectly, and Hatley apparently has no idea that any of this has been happening for the past 24 months now,” Pappert stressed.
He also challenged Hatley’s characterization of Tennessee’s education spending, citing the candidate’s statement that Tennessee is “dead last in the whole entire country of how much we spend per pupil.”
Pappert said Tennessee ranked last among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in per-pupil spending but argued that its educational outcomes were substantially stronger than Hatley’s remarks suggested.
“Tennessee ranks 16 in the nation,” Pappert said of student outcomes. “And when it comes to post-pandemic recovery, Tennessee is second in the nation.”
He also cited Tennessee’s fourth-place ranking in reading growth since the pandemic ended, arguing that the state was achieving strong results despite comparatively low spending.
“So for spending the least out of 50 states plus Washington, DC, Tennessee is performing among the best,” Pappert said.
Leahy characterized Hatley’s campaign as a collection of slogans rather than a coherent policy platform.
“Hatley…is nothing but a bunch of press releases and text messages with slogans that are meaningless,” Leahy said.
Leahy further argued that Hatley’s positions on education and public safety would appeal to voters who favor left-wing policies, despite his independent candidacy.
“To have somebody who’s running for governor to say something that stupid about education says something very bad about any voter in the state of Tennessee, Republican in particular, who would consider voting for this character. He’s basically pushing ideas that the leftist Democrats support,” Leahy said. “He’s in line with Justin Pearson, the lefty nutcase who’s running for Congress, when it comes to opposing the Memphis Safe Task Force and opposing the takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.”
He argued that Republicans who previously supported Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) in the GOP gubernatorial primary but are considering voting for Hatley in the general election would be supporting what he described as an incompetent, leftist policy agenda.
“If you’re a Monty Fritts Republican, you would join the blithering idiot club if you vote for this guy because you’re going to get an incompetent, leftist set of policies from this guy,” Leahy said.
Leahy further criticized Hatley of avoiding scrutiny by limiting his appearance on The Matt Murphy Show and refusing to appear for a live interview on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“And David, by the way, if you’re listening, you’re a coward. You’re a coward, David Hatley. Why? Because you would only appear for 20 minutes on Matt Murphy’s show, and you wouldn’t answer his questions. He’s such a coward, he will not come into this show for a live one-hour interview. You know why? Because we would obliterate his idiocy,” Leahy said. “He’s a policy coward because he won’t come on this show.”
Pappert described Hatley’s platform as “an incomprehensible amalgamation of things that sound good on social media,” adding that closer examination showed the candidate “has not thought through anything he says whatsoever.”
Early voting for the November 3 general election ends Thursday, October 29.
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https://t.co/q373c4FpOf— Michael Patrick Leahy (@michaelpleahy) October 26, 2026
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “David Hatley” by David Hatley.
