Ah, you replied to **astorian ** with the same answer I was going to give.
I too think the simplest way to define “trust” in this context is that you would believe what the person says.
Do you trust the Secretary of Defense?
Do you trust Fox News?
Do you trust a documentary filmaker with a partisan axe to grind?
Dr. Koop is looking better and better the more I think about it.
I trust Bill Cosby, and Kurt Loder, and I do trust Oprah. I don’t always agree with her, but I do trust her. I don’t think Oprah would deliberately lie or bullshit me. I was going to say Mr. Rogers, but I remembered again that he’s dead and it hurt my heart again.
And then I realized how precisely my list dates me. 
Can I trust Jocelyn Elders too? She seemed like a stand-up kind of girl.
[QUOTE=Master Wang-Ka]
I’d trust Bob Keeshan aka Captain Kangaroo; he could’ve become a rich, rich man by exploiting his audience properly; instead, he stood on his principles, and it cost him his show. He’s dead now.
QUOTE]
I didn’t know that-what’s the story?
Mark down yet another who immediately thought of Jimmy Carter.
Wang, if we’re expanding trustworthiness to include “sticking by your principles and not selling out” have I got a doozy for YOU. Hell, this is better than my offhand thumbs up for Koop.
Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson.
THINK about it. Here’s a man who stood to make many, many millions monthly merchandising his two biggest creations into the usual slew of plush toy-tie ins and calendars, T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers. And he would not do it. He did not sell out. And he continued to stick to his principles and battled his syndicate for YEARS. I’ve read his essays in his C&H Tenth Anniversary Book and believe that everything he wrote about the state of comic strip art in newspapers today are 100% dead-on. In an industry built on golf jokes, anonymous assistants doing the work of the so-called creator on the strip and retread jokes, Watterson focussed on wonder. Then he did the unthinkable and retired at the top of his game.
He’s the one person mentioned in this thread that, as much as I admired his strip and talent, I’d be nervous as hell standing in his actual presence.
Granted, he had an anti-technology bent that made some of his strips worthy shills for the Sierra Club, and his intense private nature is awfully frustrating since I want to know more biographical information about him, but you cannot find fault his skill or talent or knack for making wonders work. Watterson is one guy I’d trust implicitedly that his motive for doing anything artistic is the sheer love of the task and act of creation.
You can tell when he’s trying to be serious and when he’s trying to be comical, so it must be working on some level.
It made me smile to come in here and see how many other people agree with me on Bob Keeshan. You cannot mess with that level of integrity. Plus he’s a decorated Marine at Iwo Jima.
Bob Keeshan was a Marine but he was not at Iwo Jima and he never saw combat.
Unless you lost your life’s savings in the S&L scandal.
Funny, it was doctors that came to mind for me…
Denton Cooley
Michael DeBakey
Red Duke (although he is rumored to be a “player”).
How about Brian Lamb of C-Span.
Bill Cosby was the first person to pop into my mind. I couldnt imagine him lying.
You know who else strikes me as extremely trust worthy. Someone who wouldnt lie or cheat or be fake… Elton John, I know I know, he isnt American but he popped into my head as well.
Well, once he came out – I guess we’re forgiving him the whole marriage thing?
The OP doesn’t ask for obscure but trustworthy people, but for the most trusted person in America. Someone who’s trusted by the most people, americans I guess? Doesn’t actually say that, does it. Otherwise we could toss in Bill Clinton.
So, from what I’ve seen here so far, It’d be Carter or Dr Koop.