The Intelligence Committee chairman told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on his radio show that letting the government shut down gave Democrats the edge.

“We’re now playing on their field. Their field is somebody out there is going to get hurt by this. Well clearly, that’s the truth,” the Michigan Republican said. “Now the narrative isn’t about the fact that we have businesses who are stopping to provide health care for their employees and throwing them into an exchange that’s almost unworkable, it’s ‘Aren’t these Republicans terrible. They don’t care about this person?’”

Rogers said though he is against Obamacare, he questions his party’s strategy for going about defunding it when it’s clear the Democratic Senate and White House will not allow such a bill.

“I just don’t think this is the smartest, best way for us to get what we want to get done,” Rogers said. “As an old army guy and an FBI agent, the last place you want to be fighting a fight is on the enemy’s territory where they know it best. You want to get them in a place where you dominate the playing field, and we’re just not, and that’s what worries me.”

Rogers said he was “frustrated” with the shutdown, which he called a “visible spectacle of incompetence” from all sides, and which has led to the furloughs of intelligence staff and made the nation less safe.

“To me, that’s unconscionable. I just don’t think that we ought to put America’s national security at risk while we have these discussions, and we ought to get this thing done as soon as we can,” Rogers said.