WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump tweet was sent out just before noon on Wednesday with the all-caps headline “GREAT NEWS FOR OHIO.”

“What I do know is there’s hope now at Lordstown,” Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) told Spectrum News. “After a lot of bad news over the past several months, we now have some optimism.”

Portman was thanked by the president in his Twitter announcement, but even Portman conceded that nothing has been finalized yet.

“My hope is that we’ll be able to put this agreement together, assuming it results in good jobs and real jobs in Lordstown, and I’m told that it will,” he said.

The Lordstown General Motors plant has been sitting empty for the last two months and will require a lot of work to be retooled by the company Workhorse Group, if it formally buys the plant from GM.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said in a statement Wednesday that, “It’s still too early to tell whether the proposed sale of Lordstown is good news for workers there. Workhorse is a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing and we are proud to have them call Ohio home, but GM cannot shirk its responsibility to these workers.”

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-13), who’s running for president and currently represents Lordstown, said in a conference call with reporters that GM is not involved in the future of the plant beyond potentially handing it off.

“Short term, there’s not a whole lot of benefit,” Ryan said. “I think the long term could be potentially positive.”

He said a fresh start for the plant could be good for the Mahoning Valley down the road, but this potential sale doesn’t help the workers who just lost their jobs in March and who are chasing after their GM pensions.

Ryan said the CEO of Workhorse, a electric truck manufacturer based in the Cincinnati area, told him the company is interested in using some of the United Auto Worker (UAW) union members that worked at Lordstown, but it would probably only be a few hundred jobs initially.

And Ryan said he didn’t know how pensions would be sorted out if the sale actually happens and former GM workers start working for Workhorse.

Throughout Wednesday, Ohio lawmakers made clear that nothing is set in stone yet.

“This is a non-binding deal right now,” Ryan said, “so I don’t think we want to get ahead of our skis.”

Portman added: “We’ve got other options if this doesn’t work out. We’re talking to other companies as well. But the key is to get people back in the plant, to get that Lordstown plant humming again.”

Portman, Brown and Ryan all spoke by phone on Wednesday with GM CEO Mary Barra.

Each lawmaker said they welcomed GM’s decision to invest more in three other Ohio facilities, despite not reinvesting in the Lordstown plant.