USA TODAY interview: Nikki Haley isn't running for president. That is, not yet.

NEW YORK – Nikki Haley wants to make it clear she’s not running for president.In 2020.But the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador – author of "With All Due Respect," a new book about her experiences working for President Donald Trump – also leaves little question that she is positioning herself to be a contender to lead the GOP once Trump’s tenure is over.So far, she has managed a high-wire act that has tripped up any number of fellow Republican officials: Maintain good relations with a disruptive president but also define some distance from him.Take the now-infamous July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, now at the heart of a congressional impeachment inquiry. No, he released it anyway," she said, referring to nearly $400 million in military aid that Congress had appropriated and the administration delayed.Making the request was "not the best practice to do," she said, but added, "None of it panned out."Late Sunday, Trump welcomed her book on Twitter, encouraging his followers to "make sure you order your copy today" and adding, "Good luck Nikki!" Unlike many of her colleagues, she was able to leave the administration a year ago with a friendly Oval Office send-off rather than being fired with a derisive tweet.But she also writes that she was "deeply disturbed" after the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 when Trump said there were "very fine people, on both sides." She called him then to express her concerns.In the interview, she said the GOP should return to a focus on the federal deficit and the debt, which has ballooned during Trump's tenure, and communicate in ways that are less toxic and divisive than the current climate. "I just didn't want any part of it."More:Nikki Haley says she rebuffed efforts by Tillerson, Kelly to thwart TrumpThe conversation she recounts echoes an anonymous New York Times op-ed, published in September 2018 by someone identified only as a senior official in the Trump administration. "I choose to do that because I think as long as you feel pain, you have to keep processing." At age 47, Haley said she is glad to be "taking a breath" after 15 years of constantly running for and serving in office – six years in the South Carolina Legislature, six years as governor, two years at the United Nations.Stepping down:Nikki Haley, top Trump aide, leaves post at UNHer husband, Michael, serves in the South Carolina Army National Guard. The Republican Party has never nominated for president a woman or a person of color, demographic groups the GOP has struggled to hold.Haley said it's too early to make a decision on running for the White House down the road, but she's not coy about the possibility.