MALCOLM Turnbull has sharply criticised the corrupting power of money in the US and described America as looking ''like a country that is barely governed''.

In an interview with The Monthly, published today, the former Liberal leader and member of Tony Abbott's shadow cabinet says American politics is becoming ''profoundly dysfunctional''.

Malcolm Turnbull says American politics is becoming 'profoundly dysfuntional'. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

He attacks the Republican idea that the budgetary situation can be improved by cutting the taxes of the wealthy as ''just bizarre'', and describes the right-wing Tea Party as extreme, reactionary and radical.

Author Robert Manne writes: ''He thinks that American voluntary voting encourages Republican extremism and the search for 'hot-button issues', like abortion or guns or gay marriage or Obama as a secret Muslim.