Moment.js - how do I build moment from date and time string?

Try using the format (second) parameter moment("12-25-1995", "MM-DD-YYYY");

For details see http://momentjs.com/docs/#/parsing/string-format/

To create a moment object of your desired time, do the following:

moment('05-17-2018 11:40 PM', 'MM-DD-YYYY hh:mm A')

In this case '05-17-2018 11:40 PM' is the desired time.