Using Text Mesh Pro instead of Legacy Unity Text in Unity Drag and Drop Inventory System

Question

I am making a drag and drop inventory system with a hotbar. This script ItemPanelHelper will help distinguish between new items with an image, item name, and item count. It will/does reset the image, highlight item being selected, swap out data, and set new data.

Instead of using legacy Unity UI text I opted to us Text Mesh Pro. For some reason when I enter play mode my itemName and itemCount don't clear out. Am I correctly accessing the TMP text? Any feedback is welcome! This is what I have so far. It works with Unity's Legacy UI text.

Above: item count: 999 and item name: "BIG SHINY" both should clear out when in play mode.

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.UI;
using TMPro;

public class ItemPanelHelper : MonoBehaviour
{

public Action<int, bool> OnClickEvent;

public Image itemImage;
[SerializeField]
private TextMeshProUGUI nameText, countText; // here I switched out Text with TextMeshProUGUI
public string itemName, itemCount;
public bool isEmpty = true;
public Outline outline; // indicates if item is selected
public bool isHotbarItem = false;

public Sprite backgroundSprite;

private void Start()
{
    outline = GetComponent<Outline>();
    outline.enabled = false;
    if(itemImage.sprite == backgroundSprite)
        ClearItem();
}

public void SetIventoryUiElement(string name, int count, Sprite image)
{
    itemName = name;
    itemCount = count + "";
    if (!isHotbarItem)
        nameText.text = itemName;
    countText.text = itemCount;
    isEmpty = false;
    SetImageSprite(image);

}

// SwapWithData will help with the implementation of the drag and drop system
// to switch between the empty and non empty items from the inventory or the hot bar
public void SwapWithData(string name, int count, Sprite image, bool isEmpty)
{
    SetIventoryUiElement(name, count, image);
    this.isEmpty = isEmpty; //may want to set to true
}

private void SetImageSprite(Sprite image)
{
    itemImage.sprite = image;
}

private void ClearItem()
{
    itemName = "";
    itemCount = "";
    countText.text = itemCount;
    if (!isHotbarItem)
        nameText.text = itemName;
    ResetImage();
    isEmpty = true;
    ToggleHighlight(false);
}

private void ToggleHighlight(bool val)
{
    outline.enabled = val;
}

private void ResetImage()
{
    itemImage.sprite = backgroundSprite;
}
}