Photo Courtesy/U.S. Senate U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, shown speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate earlier this year, said talks about ending the federal government shutdown continue.

CHARLESTON — This week, the federal government shutdown broke the previous record for a shutdown during President Donald Trump’s first term, with the current shutdown entering day 38 Friday while Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate continue negotiations.

Speaking Thursday morning during a conference call with West Virginia reporters from Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she was hopeful that both sides can come to table by the end of this weekend and support a plan to fund the government through the end of the calendar year and finish work on long-term appropriations bills to fund the government for the remainder of the federal fiscal year.

“Hopefully, it’s good weather to reopen the government this weekend,” said Capito, R-W.Va., the fourth ranking member of Senate Republican majority leadership and a subcommittee chairwoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“Honestly, the refusal and the obstruction and the hijacking of the American people, it has got to come to an end,” Capito continued. “There’s some blue sky that maybe it will, but there are no promises here. We will know more as the day unfolds, but it’s really, I think, very, very wearing on the American public and in West Virginia in particular.”

The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1, the beginning of fiscal year 2026, with Tuesday exceeding the previous government shutdown record that began on Dec. 22, 2018, and ended Jan. 25, 2019 — a 35-day period.

Tuesday marked the 14th time that the U.S. Senate voted to invoke cloture for H.R.5371, the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act. The clean continuing resolution (CR) passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in September would keep the federal government funded at current levels through Friday, Nov. 21. But the bill has never been able to reach the 60-vote threshold to be considered by the full Senate, with Tuesday’s vote failing 54-44.

Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have held out in supporting the clean CR, demanding that any CR include an extension of COVID-era Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire by the end of December. In West Virginia, as many as 60,000 residents could see their health insurance premiums increase by approximately 133% if the subsidies are allowed to expire.

Senate Republicans have said they are willing to put