Santorum: Men too emotional if women have combat roles

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum insisted on Friday that when he claimed there were too many "emotions" for women to serve in combat roles, he was talking about men's feelings, not women's.

Many had taken remarks the candidate made to CNN's John King on Thursday to mean women were too emotional to fight on the front lines.

"I do have concerns about women in front line combat," Santorum told King. "I think that could be a very compromising situation people naturally, you know, may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved."

NBC's Ann Curry gave Santorum a chance to clarify his remarks the next day.

"I meant exactly what I said," the former Pennsylvania senator said. "When you have men and women together in combat, I think there's -- men have the emotions when you see a woman in harm's way. I think it's something that's natural, that's very much in our culture to be protective."

"Some people might listen to that quote and think you meant you were concerned about women being emotional," Curry noted.

"Oh, no," Santorum replied. "No, the issue is -- and certainly one that has been talked about for a long, long time -- is how men would react to seeing women in harm's way, potentially being injured or in a vulnerable position, and not being concerned about accomplishing the mission."

Watch this video from NBC's Today Show, broadcast Feb. 10, 2012.