INTERVIEW: Jermaine Johnson Talks 2026 Midterms, Protecting South Carolina Homeowners, Data Centers + More

Charlamagne Tha God (0:05)

You gonna finish or y'all done?

DJ Envy (0:06)

Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God, we are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. We got the brother, he's back, Dr. Jermaine Johnson.

Jermaine Johnson (0:16)

Welcome brother. Oh man, appreciate y'all having me back on here, man.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:19)

Democratic nominee for governor of South Carolina.

Jermaine Johnson (0:21)

South Carolina.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:22)

We got like a couple weeks left?

Jermaine Johnson (0:23)

Yeah man, about, I don't know, like 13 days or something? 13 days?

Charlamagne Tha God (0:27)

How you feeling, man? How you feeling about your chances, bro? You definitely got people excited.

Jermaine Johnson (0:30)

Man, listen, as you have seen already, people are fired up, man. They're excited about this race.

People who have not voted in a long time are like coming out to vote. You know, a lot of them hood guys that you've seen, they are showing up, they're excited about the possibility of building this new South Carolina, man.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:47)

What does new South Carolina look like to you?

Jermaine Johnson (0:49)

New South Carolina means actually driving down some smoothly paid roads.

Being able to go to your one well-paying job, you know, dropping your children off at a well-funded, supported public school and being able to have a safe neighborhood, man, and actually being able to call 911 and get to a hospital in time, you know, because in South Carolina, you know that a lot of rural hospitals have been closing down. So we want to open some of those back up and actually give people the care they need.

Charlamagne Tha God (1:14)

One thing I want to talk to you about, man, in places like Monks Corner where I'm from, Berkley County, you know, the land values are increasing so much. Like, how do you encourage development without pricing out people who've been living there forever?

Jermaine Johnson (1:29)

Well, I've been telling people even in my own district, right? So my own district is probably the largest concentration of black land ownership like in the country, right? I live in Lower Richland and I've always encouraged people, do not sell your land, do not sell your land because we know that's for generational wealth, having land ownership. So we have to make sure that we are encouraging people to be able to afford their homes, but also stay in their homes, keep ownership of that land. And we got to do that through some types of policies with land trust and things like that, that actually provide people these opportunities. But right now, man, they're struggling. They're struggling with just being able to pay a light bill, man, and it's tough.

DJ Envy (2:07)

Do you explain to people when you have that, you always say it a lot of times, especially with older family members, when people pass, right, and they acquire their grandmother's property or their parents' property or their great grandmother's property, they don't know what to do, right? So they just think it's theirs, and they be like, that's my property, I just got it, and they don't understand. You still gotta pay taxes.

Jermaine Johnson (2:22)

You still gotta maintain it.

DJ Envy (2:23)

So do y'all have something to explain that to people where they do understand that even though it's yours, it can be taken from you in no time at all?

Jermaine Johnson (2:31)

There was a lady by the name of Hattie Fruster who used to live in Lower Richland, and she had some land, and she passed away, and her family couldn't pay the taxes. And then I went to a tax sale in Richland County, and all of a sudden I saw her name go across the screen, and her land was going up for sale, and some big developer bought the land. And that was the problem. That's why I've been outspoken about this stuff, about reducing or getting rid of property tax in South Carolina, because I don't think I should be having to rent my property from the government for the rest of my life. I done paid 30 years of mortgage, and I gotta spend the rest of my life paying property taxes, because the first thing they're gonna do is come in here and take your land up and sell it to somebody else. And I think that's the problem. So we gotta get rid of that, and we gotta check that issue that we got going on. But I've been explaining as much as I possibly can, because right now I've got a platform.

DJ Envy (3:14)

Is that a real thing, getting rid of property taxes? Is that possible?