But to others in Trump’s orbit, Pence was not much of a presence even when he was in the room. To say Pence was vanilla was to underestimate the blandness he projected. “Mike Pence is vanilla ice cream,” explained a prominent adviser to Trump, “but he’s not Breyers vanilla ice cream or Häagen-Dazs. He’s like Stop & Shop vanilla ice cream”—generic, boring, predictable, and not necessarily worth opening the freezer to get.
