Exactly. In scheme reduce-left/fold-left can be as simple as:

    (define (reduce-left fn init lst)
     (if (null? lst)
      init
      (reduce-left fn (fn init (car lst)) (cdr lst))))

It's clear from that quote that Guido (at least at that time) doesn't have real experience with functional programming and is letting his personal biases cloud his judgement.

Okay maybe '"scheme isn't a functional language because it allows side effects and only Haskell and family are allowed to call themselves functional", or whatever. He seems to perhaps hint at that mentality. But the fact remains that a language like scheme makes this much easier than python.